Equinox Redux
by snickerslv100
Summary: There are things far worse than death, though this fact eluded Voldemort. Harry, on the other hand, walked in tandem with misery, for he still could feel things even after everything he'd been through. This key distinction could mean the difference between life and death. Harry/Harem; eventual Super!Harry. Massive Crossover.
1. Opening Statement

****Any material that could potentially be considered infringement of copyrights and trademarks should be considered the property of their respective creators or owners. ****

****You are reading this of your own freewill, so please refrain from doing so if you don't like graphic violence, explicit sexuality, pop culture references, vulgar language, polygamous relationships, random plot twists, character deaths, snakes, arranged marriages, or usage of drugs; of course, some of those things may not even end up in the story, but I'd rather be better safe than sorry.****

**This is a work-in-progress plot blurb with a somewhat direction for the plot, but I'm still perfectly open to suggestions. I'm writing this to flex my creative side and refine my writing, so don't be surprised if entire chapters get completely changed after they're initially uploaded. **

**There are many clichés and stereotypes in Harry Potter fanfiction because it's been around for so long; I try for originality in my own way, and will likely give a shout-out to whatever other story gave me a basic idea or concept, though I've been reading for a long time and will likely forget where something came from.  
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****If you would kindly**** review, favorite, follow, and/or share the story with communities, I would greatly appreciate it. ****

****As a perfectionist, I take great pride in my work and even more so in the fact that I don't have a BETA Reader going over every single detail. If you notice something grammatically or mechanically incorrect, please let me know. If there is a difference in lore between this and the source material that you dislike, that is either on purpose for the sake of story telling, or simply to make the story that much more interesting in my opinion.****

******Some of you may notice that the protagonist occasionally feels a sense of déjà vu for no apparent reason. That's usually me, the author and narrator, pointing out that my characters are engaged in cliche tropes of Harry Potter fanfiction, without directly saying so. It's my way of poking fun at my own work, I suppose.******

***Any passages denoted as such are either direct quotes or paraphrases from the books or other works of fanfiction and will be cited at the bottom of the chapter...* **

**Also I'd like to apologize in advance for an occasional problem. You may notice a lack of space between italicized and non-italicized words heavily prevalent in some chapters, and that is entirely the fault of this website's uploading. I hope it doesn't turn you off or anything.**

**This story was inspired by ****several other stories that I can't think of off the top of my head****. Basically, look at my favorite stories tab on my profile, and you've got nearly a hundred stories that are all superb, though not all are for these series. **

**On a side note, what would you rate each of the below categories for this chapter and all after this point: **Plot Progression, Characterization****, Environmental Imagery, **Emotive Descriptions**, Action Sequences, Verisimilitude, **Grammar and Syntax**, **and Writing Style?******

******As for the subject of lemons, I will write them but post them in a second story that will only be a compilation of lemons for this story. I just really don't want my flagship tale to be flagged for removal, that's all. ******

**Since I am honor-bound to actually have a small story here, this shall be a short omake inspired by a compilation done by another author though I can't seem to remember their pen-name (and now I've gone meta):**

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><p>The nighttime chill of Britain gave the graveyard a spooky vibe. Harry was strapped to the tombstone. Watching in horror as the ritual was performed, he writhed against the ropes. Peter Pettigrew's voice warbled, "Bone of the Father, unknowingly given, you will renew your son." And Harry saw the grave he was strapped to desecrated, an entire rotting skeleton levitated out of the ground and dropped into the enormous vat of goo.<p>

"Flesh of the Servant, willingly sacrificed, you will resurrect your master!" said Wormtail gleefully, as Bellatrix Lestrange, the most notorious and fanatical Death Eater, entered the pool of goo and slit her own throat. And so Voldemort's most fanatically loyal follower, a woman renowned for openly announcing the faction she belonged to and happily spending over a decade in Azkaban simply to prove her loyalty, had committed suicide in the name of her Master's resurrection.

"Blood of the Enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe," said Wormtail, cutting Harry's wrist and allowing his blood to drain into a several liter basin. He knew that this would nullify the protection of the mother, which would throw off his ultimate defense against the Dark Lord. But beyond that, there were the other things hidden in his blood, abilities that he didn't want the sadistic psychopath known as Lord Voldemort getting his hands on.

Luckily his advanced healing kept him alive through the bleeding out, but it only meant that they would have a victim to play with later. The blood was added to the giant cauldron containing the evil potion, which began changing colors. Eldritch energy began warping out of the basin, and high pitched cackling filled the graveyard. And the baby began to grow.

"I'm alive! I'm finally-" but Voldemort's voice cut off abruptly. Harry watched in mild terror as the newly reborn Dark Lord began to expand, almost like a peep in a microwave. The man's high pitched screams sent shivers down everyone's spines, followed shortly by an explosion of blood and guts; it seemed the evil man's celebrations were a bit too early. There was dead silence in the graveyard, as everyone stared incredulously at the ashy remains of Voldemort.

The cauldron cracked on the bottom, allowing the potion to become unbalanced and impure, resulting in such explosive results. It seemed that Percy Weasley was right all along: the thickness of cauldron bottoms was more important than anybody realized. Harry began to laugh hysterically, as Pettigrew tried to figure out what to do with the bodies of both Bellatrix Lestrange and Tom Riddle.


	2. Act One: Introduction

**Act One: Introduction**

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><p>Harry Potter laid quietly in his bed, staring at the ceiling in a daze. It was the first day of summer vacation, and he was still having a hard time understanding the events of the past week or so. It turned out that Sirius Black <em>wasn't<em> an insane psychopath that betrayed his parents to the Dark Lord and was trying to kill him for personal vengeance.

It turned out that Sirius Black was framed by Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius was only trying to break into Hogwarts to capture or kill the rat animagus. Black had spent over a decade in the chilling halls of Azkaban, despite being innocent. He was never given a trial, because it was wartime, and the Ministry was operating under martial law. They had the right to hold somebody indefinitely during those troubling times, but the war eventually ended.

And Sirius Orion Black was largely forgotten in the wake of events on that fateful Halloween of the tragedy rose a beacon of hope for the mystical population; a boy slightly older than one year old managed to survive exposure to the, previously thought, unsurvivable killing curse. Even more miraculous was the fact that the curse somehow managed to get reflected back at Voldemort, killing him instantly.

So for years, Sirius rotted away in a cell undeserving of his punishment while other people tried to move on. People trying to forget those awful times condemned an innocent man to a dozen years in the presence of Dementors, creatures that fed on happiness, warmth, and even souls.

Harry remembered reading up on Azkaban, determined to understand exactly what his godfather faced for those long years of agonizing isolation. The maximum security penitentiary was a recent acquisition by the Ministry, relatively speaking, being only about four centuries old in the wake of the dawning millenium.

Once upon a time, Azkaban was the fortress of a powerful dark sorcerer, who was purported to be the son of a Celtic god of Death, Ankou. Apparently he performed a dark ritual to become a lich, before spending a century or two evolving into a demilich and sending his astral projections into the arcane realms. The resting place of his body was his old fortress, and the waves of death and decay that wafted off of him attracted dementors. These dementors made Azkaban their nesting grounds. And the rest was history.

This was another one of those times when the lines between fiction and reality blurred to Harry. Are the Celtic gods real? What fictional, religious, supernatural, and mythical beings, objects, and events were real? And which of those things weren't? What determined which was which? What if there were other groups out there, similar to wizards, that also held higher levels of perception of the world around them? And what if they were seeing completely different things than he and his brethren were?

He'd ask Hermione about it in person the next time he saw her, because that just wasn't something he felt could force himself to seriously write down. Sometimes, even after everything they'd been through, he still worried about his only friends leaving him. The trouble that always followed him did tend to involve his friends before escalating _way_ out of control.

In first year he fought a troll, had to deal with a cursed broomstick, fought a three headed hellhound reminiscent of Cerberus from Greek mythology (the thought made him second guess his immediate dismissal of 'fictional' things yet again), been caught in a deadly constrictive plant known as devil's snare (which honestly might or might not have been sentient; he wasn't entirely sure) before taking on a giant chess set and solving a logic puzzle that _could_ have ended with both him and Hermione getting poisoned and dying. Then he fought a man possessed by the shade of a dark wizard; the same dark wizard that he apparently vanquished at the ripe old age of one.

His thoughts were distracting him from his original line of thought, which was a problem that ailed him quite often. His brain could instinctively tell him where to go and what to do to solve a mystery, but it was a preternatural urge. The arbitrary tangents his brain occasionally went on were oftentimes random, having nothing to do with the current plot of his life. Yet they almost always inadvertently gave him the answers he needed for his situation, as if his subconscious mind was guiding him towards answers in a roundabout, scenic way.

He couldn't articulate why he sometimes could make logical connections that eluded Hermione, or somehow just _know_ when something dangerous was happening. It sounded crazy, but that's just the way most of the mystical world was.

So Harry was awake, sitting quietly, counting the cracks in his ceiling as the morning drew ever closer. It was just as the sky started brightening up, marking the soon arrival of the sun, that it happened.

A miasma of black flames spread out in the air above him, sprouting out from seemingly nowhere. The eldritch energy coalesced into a vaguely avian shape before condensing. The darkness faded out of the predatory shape slowly, forming a fiery aura around a bird that was steadily coming into view, as if his glasses prescription were constantly adjusting to the new being.

The levitating entity that occupied space above his bed slowly descended towards the mattress he was lying on, the dark misty fire it exuded slowly evaporating into the shadows of the room. The black bird opened its eyes, revealing them to be blood red as it gazed into his own bespectacled emerald orbs.

They stared at each other in silence, though Harry was too frightened to even move. The creature before him felt _alien_ as if it didn't even belong to the world. It vaguely reminded him of Fawkes, that feeling of unearthly origin pervading his room, but that was the only similarity. While the headmaster's phoenix felt warm, bright, and soft, this _thing_ was cold, dark, and hard like steel.

There was a strange feeling for a moment filling Harry's head, before something indescribable happened. It is difficult to describe telepathic connections to those who have never experienced it before, but it is, in essence, wonderful. The brain becomes euphoric goo, the neurons flowing along synaptic pathways are given newer, more complicated routes across tiny threads of mental energy binding the two connected minds.

Harry jerked his head backwards, burrowing it into the soft pillow on which it was resting only moments previously. His onyx bangs hid his widened eyes from the rest of the world as he grit his teeth, trying to keep his orgasmic screams silent, only allowing a tremulous whimper to escape. After a few minutes, his body lost all rigidity as he finally relaxed, his breathing deep and peaceful. He pathetically looked at the creature that did this to him, wondering what just happened.

Rather than the sinister malevolence he sensed from it earlier, it seemed... amused?

"What just happened?" he asked in a raspy whisper, his voice cracking with emotions. A few tears were leaking out of his eyes, because he'd never experienced such blinding, heavenly bliss in his entire life. And somehow he knew that he'd never experience anything like it again, because the evanescent pleasure was a once in a lifetime moment.

The dark bird tilted its head in a curious fashion, and a voice, imitating his own, seemed to come from _within his head_, _"We just mated, obviously."  
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Fleur Delacour was walking across the sandy beach, watching transfixed as the Mediterranean Sea crashed wave after wave upon her back yard. The sun was shining brightly above her, and the glistening water sparkled majestically before her. Her smooth red lips quirked upwards in a small smile at the feeling of bliss swirling through her perfect body upon return to her ancestral home. Sighing happily at the warmth covering her nude figure, she stretched into a yoga position, the Big Toe Pose, and blinked lazily at the natural resplendent beauty of nature that surrounded her.

Lying on a towel in the sand next to her was her younger sister, Gabrielle, who was also naked. They went starkers so they wouldn't have any tan-lines on their bodies, plus it felt rather freeing to expose themselves to the elements like they were. The younger looked like a miniature version of the older, though not quite as developed as Fleur since she had yet to enter their unique brand of puberty. "So Fleur," said Gabrielle as she enviously admired her sister's yoga pose, "I was wondering... how old were you when you went through the Change?"

Fleur sighed and changed into a different yoga pose, this one the Lord of the Dance Pose, as she regarded one of the few people that truly respected her in the world. "I was about thirteen, your age, when it finally happened," she said, her eyes growing distant as she began reliving the memory.

"What did it feel like?" whispered Gabrielle, her eyes pleading for more details on the subject. It was, after all, a rather important event that was supposed to be happening sometime within the next year for her, just like every veela went through. While they weren't purebred veela, they still had enough of the phantasmal creature's characteristics to go through their process. Hopefully their daughters didn't go through a similar experience at that age because there was even less of their nonhuman genealogy, but it was too soon to even guess at that.

"I won't lie to you, it hurt like a bitch," said the elder beauty, her lilting voice contrasting the crass words. That much of a physiological change at once would kill an ordinary human, but they weren't exactly normal, were they?

Fleur shrugged her shoulders, as she shifted to the Low Lunge Pose, her jovial attitude doing nothing to bury the tension underlying the conversation. Sweat starting glistening across her smooth body, though it somehow made her seem more attractive than before.

Gabrielle smiled and said, "I'm scared about it, but only a little. It's just that... I know it could happen at any time, at any place without warning." She tried to sound cheerful as well, but the attempt fell flat at her explanation. The likelihood of her going through an intensely painful transformation process would grow marginally everyday, until she would succumb to her bodies urges and allow her instincts to take hold.

"That's true enough, I suppose," said Fleur as she stretched her spine. The only thing that triggers the sudden veela metamorphosis prematurely is an enormous emotional reaction to something, and as a teenager the hormones in their bodies are all over the place prior to the transformation.

Fleur grinned slightly as she stopped doing her yoga poses and began doing her gymnastics exercises, immediately doing a cartwheel. "If you were to get really mad, or very happy, or even too sad, you would just change on the spot," said Fleur as she did a right hand spring with a cute twirl at the end.

If any sexually compatible humanoid were around to see her lithe nude body bouncing around and jiggling, they'd likely lose their minds. Fortunately their home was supernatally hidden from the world.

"I just can't help but wonder if there's some way to force it to happen painlessly, or maybe to prevent it from happening altogether. I want to go through the Change, I really do, but the pain... I don't want to be stuck in the body of a child for the rest of my life either, not if boys'll just see me as a little girl while the other girls my age leave me behind. I still look like an eight year old, and they're starting to get boobs?" asked Gabrielle. "It's not fair!"

The conversation was a heavy one already, and Fleur only just got back home for summer break from Beauxbatons earlier that day. The day was already coming to a glorious end, what with the sky being a veritable rainbow of color from the setting sun.

"I know how you feel; I felt much the same four years ago. I decided to just force the transformation by sleeping with some guy. I don't recommend you taking the same route. I did it before I was truly ready, and my heart was broken into so many pieces... Don't do it like that, at least for me." She'd never admitted that she wasn't a virgin to anyone before, but she could tell that her parents already knew somehow.

Particles of sand clung to her dainty feet as she turned her back towards the enormous mansion that she called home. That was a good note to end the conversation on, something that would give Gabrielle pause. Hopefully she wouldn't make the same mistake, though there wasn't much more that Fleur could do other than offer outside counsel on the matter. Hearing a shuffling noise, Fleur looked over to see her sister putting her clothes back on and heading back home quietly with downcast eyes. "I didn't know," whispered the younger girl.

"That's because I didn't want you to," answered the older quarter veela. Fleur watched with a small amount of guilt as Gabrielle trudged back to their house alone, but the girl needed some alone time to think. Turning her dazzling eyes towards the structure itself, she couldn't help but wonder why she felt the inclination to divulge such information into an impressionable little girl.

The truth could be a rather ugly thing, and everyone needed to face it eventually, but did she handle the situation correctly? Maybe she didn't need to throw that random fact out there, but it felt necessary, as if she needed to hand that warning out.

She looked around curiously for a stray dog that her mother, Apolline, had mentioned in a few of her later letters while Fleur was still in school. Apparently the enormous shaggy canine was incredibly sweet and gentle despite what one would expect from its mangy appearance, which reminded the elder Delacour female of her husband. The fact that it adorably liked to mischievously pull on the strings of her bikinis just endeared the dog to her mother. Apparently it abruptly disappeared about a day ago, a little before Fleur got the chance to meet him.

What she found strange was that the dog somehow got onto their property. Chatteau Delacour was hidden away from the rest of the world by powerful enchantments laid down centuries ago by her paternal side of the family. In fact it was probably the only reason that she would ever dare to leave the confines of her room with the tiniest amount of skin showing as a veela. And while the wards didn't necessarily keep animals away, it did typically repel non-supernatal creatures.

Shrugging her delicate shoulders at the strange conundrum, she turned back to staring out at the ocean when her stomach growled quite loudly. Her smile, which had temporarily disappeared during her conversation with her little sister, grew as she ran back towards her towel and bathing suit. She had decided, upon reaching the famiy's private beach, that she'd rather not wear clothes after all, simply because it wasn't all that necessary when nobody could trespass on their lands. And, being the copycat that her little sister was, Gabrielle quickly mimicked those actions.

Now, knowing that soon she'd be treated to her favorite foods by the Delacour family's personal master chef, Roselia, she quickly began slipping into her clothes when she decided to discretely examine her body. Most women would probably do inconceivably unhealthy things to themselves to get a body that looked even half as attractive as hers, but her maternal ancestry allowed her to almost take it for granted. Being a part veela made her a perfect ten in appearance by human standards even on her worst days.

She had long legs with strong lean muscle, somewhat wide hips that helped support a curvaceous gludeos maximus, and a flat stomach with the beginnings of a feminine six pack. Her breasts were the perfect combination of large, firm, and perky while not being too much of any. Her neck was long and graceful, giving way to the delicate features of her doll-like face. Plus she had no unwanted bodily hair growth either, which was a plus.

While her mother's side of the available gene pool provided Fleur with the sexual appeal and appetite of a veela, her father's side of the family gave her something far more interesting and diverse. Louis Delacour was a direct descendant of the famous Emperor Charlemagne, who managed to conquer most of western and central Europe during his lifetime. The fact that Charlemagne was a muggle was inconsequential to the witch who ensnared him more than twelve hundred years ago since his achievements and character were renowned throughout the world, as was his wealth.

And that wealth, while greatly dwindled over the many generations since her famous forefather, was readily evident upon seeing all that remained of the Holy Roman Empire, Chatteau Delacour and its grounds. Fleur, while putting her clothes back on in preparation of returning home, gazed at her gargantuan house in wonder of its architectural design, being both aesthetically pleasing and functional, despite having lived there all her life. If one weren't used to affluent surroundings, they wouldn't be anywhere near comfortable in the massive building.

The mansion was enormous, quite possibly the largest private home and grounds in all of France. There were beautiful marble balconies, giant stained glass windows depicting long forgotten tales about the achievements of her ancestors, and dozens of brick chimneys sticking out of the slanted rooftops. But while the outside seemed to be so big it seemed frivolous, the inside was simply preposterous due to spatial expansion enchantments. It was almost the size of Beauxbatons itself, which was a carbon copy of the Castle of Versailles.

Her almond shaped bright blue eyes twinkled with happiness as she scrutinized the place that she was most comfortable at. The grounds had beautiful gardens with exotic flora and fauna alike, large orchards teeming with untold amounts of mystical fruits, several vineyards that produced high quality grapes for fine wines, stables where various equine creatures waited to be ridden, kennels with a small number of canine and feline species respectively, aviaries with various birds of prey like owls and falcons, and pastures where cows and llamas could be seen grazing day in and day out. Plus they had an entire motherfucking ocean for a front yard.

And people wondered why she seemed spoiled, but that's what you get when you're arguably royalty.

Shaking her head to regain track of her thoughts, Fleur had her flawless skin covered by a racy black bikini. She could take the chance of running into her family without accidentally flashing them now that she was properly clothed, so she entered through the still open front door. The tantalizing scent of French cuisine wafted through the house, signifying that her favorite house elf was preparing a special meal just to celebrate her coming home from Beauxbatons with a perfect grade point average.

She quickly ran up one staircase out of the thirty or so that adorned her house and quickly headed to her room to get changed into proper eating attire. Along the way she bumped into Gabrielle, who just nodded an acknowledgement to her apology before disappearing. She still needed some solitude, apparently. Swiftly Fleur entered her room and quickly changed into more appropriate attire for fine dining. She quickly headed to the dining room, where the rest of her family were already waiting politely for her.

"So, Fleur, now that you're back home, I was wondering if you'd like to continue your training?" asked her mother Apolline. Fleur grinned and nodded, making her mother smile happily before adding, "So far you've gained control over your Allure enough to at least keep guys away, but you need to be able to use it as a weapon at some point. Plus there's our special connection to fire, and our bird forms too... you're gonna have a busy vacation, young lady,"

Laughing, Louis Delacour decided to comment before his wife got lost on a tangent, "Also, I'd like to begin teaching you about your... _other _training." Fleur's smile quickly lost some of its pleasantness as she heard her father's words. She loved the man, she really did, but sometimes his insistence upon learning some of the traditions of his side of the family were wearing out on her.

"Father-" began Fleur, but she was quickly interrupted by a much more stern voice from the addressed man.

"Fleur, I love my family more than anything else in the world. This includes you, even though it may not seem that way from the harsh expectations I have of you. Its just that I don't feel comfortable with you going to an entire other country, especially a corrupt country run by blood purist conservatives," said Louis Delacour, a small amount of his insecurity finally coming through.

"I don't think its nearly as bad as you're envisioning it to be, my love," said Apolline, her kind voice taking on a tender tone as she gently rebuked her husband. "After all, we haven't even been there. Who are we to judge them without even gracing them with our presences?" she asked rhetorically, her elegant eyebrow raised slightly in a surreptitious challenge.

He gulped and turned back to Fleur before continuing, "You were three years old, Fleur, when Britain was in strife because of their prejudices, and I honestly doubt that the typical mindset of their people has changed substantially. I want you to learn how to protect yourself in situations where I can't do it for you, and it'll be quite helpful in your future endeavors if you decide to go through with it."

Fleur frowned and said, "It isn't that I don't want to do it, it's just that I don't have enough time to do so. Between practicing my skills as a witch and a veela, where would I find the time to learn the ancient ways?"

Louis sighed in defeat and said, "I didn't want to give you this until your birthday, but it'll serve a better purpose if you have it over the summer." He got up and said, "Roselia," to which said house elf appeared out of nowhere. Smiling indulgently, he said, "Would you kindly retrieve Fleur's birthday present from me? It's in my personal office." The house elf nodded and complied before disappearing with a faint pop. Within moments it reappeared and he took the proffered gift from Roselia's tiny hands.

It was a fairly small parcel, wrapped in bright blue paper with a white bow. Handing it to his daughter, Louis smiled expectantly and said, "There are several rules concerning its usage, but I trust that you won't abuse this gift unduly." As those words were spoken, Fleur opened the package and peeked inside before gasping in disbelief. Her slender hand reached in and pulled out what appeared to be a necklace with an hourglass shaped pendant.

"A time-turner..." she muttered breathlessly, her twinkling sapphire eyes staring unabashed at the trinket. The glittering sands held within the hourglass were actually the crushed up wings of pixies, the weakest subgroup of faeries known to man. Ever since the discovery of temporal distortion in the vicinity of the creatures, as well as the eventual quantification of such a phenomenon, there was a gold rush that placed them all on the endangered phantasmal species list. So many were leaving the world nowadays...

"Yes," said Louis with a grin, "I expected you to react like that. Before I get sidetracked, I'll tell you the rules of its use. Rule number one, you cannot directly interact with yourself upon going back in time. Rule number two, you cannot change that which has already happened; basically meaning that preventing something bad from happening or causing something good to happen that previously didn't can suck you into a timeless void. Rule number three, tell nobody about the existence of this artifact."

Apolline added, "You can only use up to six hours within any twenty four hour period. This time can be used for recreation, studying spells, practicing your veela abilities, or even your father's training. We know that you won't abuse it to give you an unfair advantage in sporting events or tests, which is why we're giving it to you. With the lofty goal you've given yourself, winning the Triwizard Tournament, you need as much help as you can get. The opposition will be brutal, and this will give you an edge over your opponents."

Nodding absently, Fleur asked, "You have my eternal gratitude for giving something so useful as a gift, but why did you plan on giving me such an expensive, usually illegal gift in the first place? I know that as the French Minister of Magic you have some leeway, but this is a risk far beyond anything else you've ever done for us..."

Frowning, Louis said, "I've got a strange feeling about the coming year; call it a father's intuition. Something tells me that a major event will be happening, and you're definitely going to be a part of it. I also think it has something to do with Britain, excluding the Triwizard Tournament, which is why I got us tickets to the Quidditch World Cup, which will be held in Britain. We're all going to that, by the way." Nobody complained about the announcement. After all, quidditch was a very popular sport in the family.

"We're going to Britain?" asked an excited Gabrielle, who'd remained silent during the conversation up until that point. "I wonder if I'll get to meet Harry Potter while I'm there?" It seemed the parents had meant to keep it a surprise for the youngest daughter until their eldest returned home. Fleur smirked, thinking about the probability of running into that particular wizard. If the strange rumors coming out of Britain recently about the sheer number and insanity of his exploits were anything to go by, then her next year at Hogwarts was going to be quite interesting.  
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_"I'm just kidding, we didn't mate," _said the bird, it's voice somehow conveying chuckles even as it echoed around Harry's skull. All things considered, it probably wasn't the absolute worst first impression that Harry'd ever gotten from a nonhuman sentient being, but it still made his preference to stick with people seem a lot more logical in wake of this dastardly sense of humor.

Harry was glaring at the bird in annoyance. "Why would you say something like that?" he asked in irritation. For a brief moment after the bird's stupid joke, his breath hitched in his throat out of sheer horror. He'd heard stories about wizards being tricked into mating with supernatal beasts, and none of them ever ended with a happy ending for the wizard, no pun intended.

_"Because I thought it'd be funny?" _the bird's voice sounded so smug that Harry wanted to throw his pillow at it. In fact, he sent a rude hand gesture in the general direction of the black bird of flames before throwing said pillow at the creature. The plush bedware phased through the creature like it wasn't even there, reminding Harry that the thing in front of him was no joke.

"Your sense of humor leaves something to be desired," he said, dryly, getting over the intangibility of his conversational partner rather quickly. Sometimes living in a world filled with spellcraft could just destroy the curiosity and innocence of a person. Honestly, he'd seen some pretty strange things over the years, so while this was a pretty strange moment, it didn't register with him as _particularly _odd; things like this tended to happen around him.

_"I feel as if I should care... but I don't," _was the bird's response, somehow conveying sarcasm despite not having any change in intonation to hint at such. Hearing your own voice in your own head yet knowing that it in fact _wasn't_ a part of you that was talking... It was eerie, to be honest. And Harry was getting pretty sick and tired of weird shit happening around him for no apparent reason.

"What are you doing in my bedroom, anyway? And _what_ in heaven's name _are_ you?" asked Harry, his voice coming off a bit more gruff than he intended. He was finally going through puberty, at least that's why he thought his voice was cracking so much. The other boys his age had much deeper voices than him, making him feel very childlike, especially around attractive girls.

_"I am... a phoenix, of sorts. As to what my purpose is in being here... that's a long story, and you wouldn't believe me even if I told you," _replied the creature. The sun was beginning to actually rise over the horizon, filling the early morning sky with beautiful, vivid colors. The light was shining through his open window, and he could tell that the day was about to begin.

"A phoenix... right..." said Harry. The bird looked more like a raven than anything else, but he wasn't about to mention that to the bird. "So tell me, what is it that you did to me just now?" Now that he'd established that they hadn't _mated_ of all things, he was curious what could possibly cause such a powerful rush of delight to course through him. It was comparable to flying on a broom, only much more intense.

_"I became your familiar. Our minds connected psychically, so now our thoughts and emotions flow between each other easily. At times, our identities might even merge together. We can silently communicate across great distances, so you really don't have to voice your questions aloud,"_ answered the bird. It hopped over to his open closet and began grabbing clothes in its beak, a workout suit from what he could see.

_"So you can hear my thoughts?"_ asked Harry, unsure if he'd like having such a mysterious thing privy to his inner secrets. The bird dropped a pair of jogging pants and a tank top onto the foot of his bed, not even hesitating in its movements as it continued the mental conversation. Harry appraised the proffered apparel with an upraised eyebrow, but put the clothes on anyway.

_"Only the ones you wish for me to hear,"_ said the bird, as it sat silently next to Hedwig, who was snoozing as if there weren't another living thing in the room. _"Now you're far too skinny to be healthy, so you're going to start exercising on a daily basis. We need to work on your flexibility, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and cardiovascular endurance. The more fit you are, the better you'll do in a fight..."_

_"How can I tell if you're trustworthy? You could totally be a dark wizard or evil spirit or something like that. Or better yet, how do I know you're not just some overactive figment of my imagination? You could just be a symptom of schizophrenia as far as I know..."_ Even as he mentally projected his reservations towards the raven-esque thing that connected with his mind, he silently left the house and began jogging around the neighborhood.

He was a lot stronger than he looked. Most gym teachers during primary school would've called him wiry, then be curious why none of the other children picked him to be on their team for sports. That was just one of the many ways that Dudley and his gang of sycophants had ruined Harry's childhood. Strangely enough, Harry hadn't watched much television in his life, otherwise he'd know just how cliche they were being, as far as bullying went.

_"If I were a dark wizard I'd have already tried to kill you, and if I were an evil spirit I'd have tried to possess you. I can't yet prove to you that I'm _not _an overactive figment of your imagination, but could you just trust me for the time being? I swear you won't regret following my advice,"_ said the bird. So far, the advice it'd given _had_ made some sense, so he was going along with it for now.

_"Alright, I agree for now, but I reserve the right to get rid of you at any moment, okay?" _he said as he picked up his speed around the neighborhood. The good thing about Little Whinging was that the neighborhood had a bunch of hilly roads, which meant that his straining muscles already had to deal with varying degrees of incline as well as the different speeds at which he ran. It was a good place to jog for those crazy health nuts that needed a decent challenge.

_"Agreed, though it won't happen if you're smart," _replied the bird. It was flying alongside him, completely silent other than the sound of it's sardonic voice echoing through his head. Harry noticed that it didn't create a shadow anywhere in went, which likely meant that it wasn't entirely corporeal even if it could affect its surroundings. That was an observation he noted, something to look up on later if he needed.

_"So aside from being able to talk to each other, what exactly does our bond entail?"_ asked Harry, thankful that he didn't have to speak aloud. He was already very winded, a small stitch in his side starting to grow more and more painful with every passing moment. It'd only been about five minutes, but he was severely out of shape.

Somehow his body was trained to withstand several G's of force while riding a broom at a couple hundred miles per hour, yet he couldn't run more than a block without getting tuckered out. That would change soon.

_"I will be your partner in everything, helping you gain more power and followers on your journey to greatness,"_ answered the black phoenix. Harry began stretching his legs as he tried to catch his breath, hoping that he could somehow extend the amount of time he could jog by doing so. He didn't want to unduly disappoint his newest confidant, if he could avoid it.

_"Excuse me if I seem a little ungrateful at first, but I'm not sure if I want power or followers,"_ was Harry's witty reply. Giving up jogging as a lost cause now that he had finally stopped and could feel just how fatigued his body truly was, Harry walked back to Number Four, Privet Drive with a slight amount of shame curdling in his stomach like sour milk.

_"You'll need both to survive your future ordeals. Trust me, Voldemort isn't an enemy you want to have catch you flat footed,"_ was the bird's rejoinder. Harry quietly entered the house and began preparing breakfast as fast as he could; soon the Dursley clan would be waking up and expending their meal to be prepared for them. Why they needed him to cook their food for them when Petunia was a perfectly capable cook he didn't know. But he'd rather not anger them unduly.

_"How do you know about Voldemort?"_ questioned the wizard. As he grabbed ingredients for a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, and orange juice. All fresh and made from scratch, using a recipe that he'd slowly perfected over the years to make it into one top notch meal. He could probably get into a culinary school at this point from his level of school in the kitchen, despite not even cooking for his time at Hogwarts.

_"How wouldn't I know about Voldemort?"_ asked the phoenix rhetorically. Harry began humming as he bustled busily around the kitchen. It may have seemed unmanly to uncultured swine that believed only women should cook, but Harry had a passion for cooking that nearly rivaled his passion for flying. Cooking made him feel happy, because it was one of the few things that he was truly good at. It was also one of the rare moments when he was free to choose how to do something his own way, too.

_"Fair point. You seem to know about him; care to give me any ideas of how to finish him?"_ wondered the cooking boy. The fresh aroma of cooking chicken fetuses and pig flesh wafted through the house, making Harry's stomach rumble. He'd have to make himself a plate before they got down, otherwise he likely wouldn't be able to get as much as his growing body needed, and his morning workout gave him quite the appetite.

_"Of course I do. What kind of familiar would I be if I couldn't help you in your goals? First of all, you must prevent him from regaining a body at all costs. He is clever and cunning beyond his considerable years, and he is a supernatal genius. He is creative, which gives him a measure of unpredictability in fights that will be difficult to counter. He is a psychopath, which gives him a measure of brutality in fights that you'll be hard pressed to match. And he is charismatic, which gives him many followers to use as cannon fodder,"_ answered the raven.

_"Alright, alright, I get it; 'don't let him get a body or he'll destroy you easily'. But how should I prevent him from coming back? The Philosopher's Stone has been destroyed-"_ began Harry. As he commenced eating the carefully prepared meal. He savored the tastes as he did so, knowing that Petunia would soon be enforcing a horrible diet program on the whole house; Dudley was now wider than he was tall, which was saying something.

_"So says Dumbledore,"_ interjected the fiery avian. As Harry finished eating, he cleaned his dishes and quietly headed back up to his room, only to hear the stampede of feet as Dudley and Vernon finally figured out that food was ready. Those fat-asses would eat everything in sight and likely demand more, but that was literally all the food left in the house since they hadn't gone to the grocery store in over a week.

_"What, are you saying Dumbledore lied to me?"_ said the scarred child incredulously. He sat on his bed and went back to counting the cracks in the ceiling, wondering how he was supposed to do his supernatal homework if his guardians didn't let him even approach his spell-books or magic wand. If only Dobby hadn't tried to save him two years ago...

_"I'm saying it's a definite possibility,"_ answered the shadowy predator. Harry was curious if anybody else could even see his newest friend. At first he was scared of some muggles seeing him getting just by the dark raven simply because they'd ask him why a bird was following him with such drive, and anything abnormal like that would likely end up getting back to Petunia and Vernon.

Or worse, the Ministry of Magic would end up deciding that he was too close to breaking the Statute of Secrecy. He wasn't sure exactly how they'd go about fixing that, but he assumed it involved a crapload of obliviations and compulsions. It really could ruin somebody's life, if they forgot the wrong details at the wrong moment. It was probably a key component to Alzheimer's Disease too, though were that thought came from Harry had no clue.

_"That's just stupid. Why would he lie about something like that? What would he gain?"_ asked the young hero. Today was his first day back from Hogwarts, and he just knew that he'd be given a list of chores to do by the end of the summer that would've had most kids his age crying tears of frustration and rage, but the Dursleys had always been that way to him.

_"Other than the Elixir of Life and practically unlimited gold? No clue,"_ sarcastically remarked the black phoenix. Harry hated returning to this place every summer. He'd much rather either stay at Hogwarts or go with Ron to the Burrow. Or, he might even like to go over to Hermione's...

_"I seriously doubt that he would do something like that,"_ denied the child of prophesy.

Harry'd never actually met her parents, and she hardly ever talked about them, much the same way Harry didn't talk about the Dursleys... Now that Harry thought about it, Hermione didn't get any mail from home first he just thought it was because they were muggles and weren't able to get owl post, but that idea was discarded pretty quickly; how else would a muggle family get their Hogwarts acceptance letters? And so they likely _could_ receive owl post, which meant that they likely didn't have an owl for some reason.

_"So you think him above the temptations that ail all men?"_ queried the ebony bird.

Harry didn't know much about Hermione's parents, but he knew that they were dentists, and that dentists make a fair amount of money. So it wasn't that they couldn't _afford_ an owl...He knew that Hermione was rather introverted in most social settings, hardly ever talking to anyone out of her immediate social circle, chiefly Harry and Ron. He also knew that she didn't actually get along very well with Ron, which was understandable; the two were complete and utter opposites.

_"Not exactly. It just doesn't seem like something he'd do. I _have _met him before, you know,"_ explained the green eyed boy.

So maybe Hermione's home life wasn't as good as he expected it to be? But she didn't really have any of the same problems that he did. Or did she?She was isolated from the rest of her peer group in much the same way that Harry was, though for largely different reasons. Her incredible intellect and prodigious talent put her on a pedestal, making everyone else look at her with jealousy and envy. He knew most people their ages weren't very friendly to her, and if it weren't for him being one of her few friends... he didn't know what she'd do.

_"I'm aware, but he's a suspicious character,"_ the winged creature foreshadowed.

So Hermione was largely alone, except for Harry and Ron, and she didn't even really like Ron all that much. That meant that Harry was probably one of the only friends she had in the whole wide world. And what did he really even know about her at this point? That she was intelligent, precocious, curious, brave, proud, and nerdy in her own cute way. If Harry were to form an inner circle similar to Voldemort, she would be the first initiate, his most trusted confidant, his favorite lieutenant, his right hand. But what did he know about her as a person?

_"How so?"_ demanded the impetuous teen.

His other friend, Ron, on the other hand, was... loud, obnoxious, lazy, clumsy, annoying, and rather stupid in the general sense of the word. But he was also brave, loyal, passionate about chess and quidditch, and good for a laugh were moments when they clicked, and there were moments when there was friction between them, but they'd stuck together through thick and thin.

_"Have you ever wondered how a single man could be the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, _and _Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"_ began the ruby eyed creature.

The boy was a good friend to have for the majority of the time, but Harry could still remember the times that his friend let him down: when he put down Hermione in their first year and tried to talk Harry out of rescuing her from the troll, and especially how his friend had been a bit distant toward him when everyone thought he was the Heir of Slytherin during the Chamber of Secrets Incident.

_"Uh... no. Honestly, I'd never even thought about questioning how he got all those positions-"_ Harry started lamely.

He didn't know if he'd put Ron in his inner circle, other than maybe to use him for his familial connections, but the boy just wasn't somebody he could see being in charge of anybody and remain a competent leader. There were moments when his potential was there, but the boy's abrasive personality did a good job of hiding it.

_"Then you're a fool. You should always question those with authority over you, at least to some extent. Blind obedience does not make a great leader; a great leader makes blind obedience,"_ the dark raven intoned.

Maybe if Harry worked with Ron over the next few years, he could get the boy to improve? It seemed doubtful to Harry, but he knew that people could change if their were given the proper incentive to do so. And the one thing that Ron apparently craved above all else was being distinct from his brothers. Perhaps it was due to his own upbringing without siblings to look up to, but Harry was somewhat jealous of Ron, in a way.

_"I don't think that's an actual proverb-"_ the pale young man decried.

_"But you understand what I meant, surely?"_ implored the intangible bird shaped wraith.

_"That great leaders often have the most loyal followers?"_ asked Harry unsurely.

He was starting to warm up to the idea of becoming a leader in the future, but it was still something he'd need to think about. He wished he'd had somebody like this bird a few years ago when he first started attending Hogwarts; the idea of being a leader among his peers was something that actually sounded pretty good, the more and more he thought about it.

_"Exactly,"_ agreed the ageless avian entity.

But he just couldn't envision himself as a king, sitting on a throne for the day to day administrative responsibilities that such a position would entail. He was, admittedly, getting a little carried away with his impromptu daydream, but the principle was pretty much spot on. He wouldn't have the patience for having such responsibilities; he was a free spirit that didn't like being held in one place for too long.

_"Dumbledore has lots of loyal followers,"_ bespoke the small teen in a confused tone.

So what would be the purpose of him gaining power if he never intended to actually do anything with it? Oh, he'd probably create an egalitarian society where prejudice and discrimination of any kind would be outlawed, but beyond that? There was absolutely nothing he really wanted to do.

_"Indeed. But so did Voldemort. Being a great leader has nothing to do with morals and scruples, it has to do with power and image. Both Dumbledore and Voldemort have comparable political and personal power, but their images are contradictory to each other. I will help you become a great leader _at least _on the same level as those two, likely far better-"_ said the intelligent nonhuman.

_"But I don't want to be a leader! I wanna be Harry, just Harry,"_ projected Harry, accidentally cutting off his newest companion.

It was strange, being wishy washy. Normally he could make up his mind so easily, but on this particular issue he was feeling indecisive, switching between interest in world domination and noting how he had no ambitions for such a goal. He felt deep down that he probably _could_ be a great leader if he wanted, but there was something blocking this from happening.

_"I'm afraid to say that that isn't possible,"_ responded the phoenix wannabe sadly,_ "You are destined to be a great leader whether you wish to be or not. Though, that isn't entirely correct, now is it?" _Those words had a strange ring to them, almost as if they had some deeper truth hidden somewhere within them. But try as he might, Harry couldn't seem to figure it out, even though his instincts were practically blaring that this was _very _important.

_"It isn't?"_ replied Harry with a small amount of burgeoning hope. Yet at the same time, he felt a tiny twinge of annoyance welling up inside him. The bird obviously knew what Harry was thinking on the side, even if it claimed to only know the thoughts that he supposedly allowed it to hear. Maybe he didn't have enough practice with the technique yet, but there was something seriously _off_ about the whole situation.

_"No. You're being forced into this through the machinations of others, as well as the mechanisms of fate. It's just not entirely the fault of destiny. Think hard about that memory the dementors uncovered for you. That long forgotten, repressed memory..."_ answered the black bird, bludgeoning the burgeoning hope and flaring up the annoyance ruthlessly with words alone.

_"... The one where my parents are killed by Voldemort?"_ asked the troubled orphan quietly. He felt suspense building inside him. He knew exactly what it meant. Soon he would be making an important decision that would affect the rest of his life, and it had something to do with the evanescent phantasm with which he was carrying out a conversation. But to what end?

_"Yes, that one,"_ said the powerful raven with no small amount of guilt lacing its voice. He felt a storm brewing on the horizon, a metaphorical storm of course, but a storm nonetheless. It was the sign of a powerful conflict that he would either contribute to or head off, but there was no way to stop it outright, not according to his instincts.

_"How did you know about that?"_ wondered Harry with fury flashing in his brilliant green eyes. He knew not what the major event in history would be, or exactly how the routes of fate would change with a single decision on his part, but he felt the weight of importance on him, besetting his frail human body with pressure right up to his stress threshold, simmering and scalding just beneath the lid that he was firmly holding shut.

_"I know lot's of things. Just tell me, what happened in that memory?"_ prompted the fiery raven. He could tell that somehow the bird knew exactly what the contents of that memory would contain, yet was asking these invasive questions about a traumatic experience anyway. As he recalled the memory, he could even feel the distant, ever present chill of a dementor's presence ingrained within the fiber of the memory itself.

_"My father told my mother to take me and run, while he tried to hold Voldemort off. Then Voldemort told her to step aside, or he'd kill her-"_ began the chosen hero, his voice naught but a whisper. He felt silly acting so scared in broad daylight, but the contents of the memory and the dementing contamination that clung to the event were making it hard to stay positive.

_"Exactly. Now, you've realized this on a subconscious level, but explain why he did this?"_ relayed the cold phoenix. He could feel himself on the precipice of a significant epiphany, something his preternatural mystery solving brain obviously already knew, but hadn't been able to relay to him in any manner without causing him to go into shock from the sheer unfairness of the world.

_"Because he didn't want to hurt her?"_ asked Harry uncertainly. The winds of the proverbial storm in the back of his mind were howling towards the heavens like a ravenous lupine predator, tiny needles of freezing rain coating the inside of his skull with a tingly sensation. Thunder crashed and lightning flashed, and still he didn't understand. Not yet, but _soon_.

_"Go on,"_ prompted the black bird. And just like that, he saw all the puzzle pieces before his mind's eyes. The bad, ugly truth that his young mind was just too innocent to comprehend, too naive to even suspect that something so horribly tragic could ever happen to it, began crashing through his mind as pieces of hail, obliterating all other thoughts, leaving a lone mountain of anguish unmarked from the mental devastation.

_"That he only wanted to kill... me. He went out of his way just to kill me, a mere baby at the time. W-Why would he do that? What was so special about me that it caught his attention?"_ asked Harry, beginning to hate himself for not seeing it sooner. Of course there was something different about him; there always was something setting him apart from his peers. But something so important that it led to his parents' deaths?

_"Dumbledore knows, but he won't tell you until he thinks you're ready. As to when that is, I can't say,"_ explained the timeless being. He curled up into a ball and stared longingly out the window, whose previous brilliance was now dimmed by clouds that were blotting out the happy sunshine. It seemed fitting, in his opinion, that this revelation would coincide with such an abrupt change in weather.

_"Do you know why?"_ extrapolated the dark haired young man. There were a few taps of water droplets on his window, rapidly increasing speed and volume as a storm started blowing in. He briefly wondered where the storm suddenly came from, but it wasn't that important. He felt oddly in harmony with it, as if the outer world reflected his inner world.

_"I do,"_ answered the formless entity truthfully. A crack of lightning filled the sky as Harry's eyes narrowed on the bird.

_"Can you tell me?"_ asked Harry with nary a thought of possible consequences even flickering through his mind. He wanted to know, needed to know what it was about him that was so gods damned special that his parents ended up brutally murdered just to keep him from growing older. Maybe he could use whatever it was to his advantage. Maybe he could use it to sabotage Voldemort...

_"... If you accept my help in gaining followers and power,"_ reasoned the dark bird. The inclement weather outside seemed to calm down ever so slightly, as if it too were surprised at the creature's pragmatism.

_"Fine, I'll do it,"_ accepted the youthful hero, his eyes gleaming brilliantly in the bright morning sunshine with a new-found sense of determination that could and likely would send any schoolyard bullies running form him at a record pace. A chill ran down his spine at that very moment, and he couldn't help but feel as if he'd just signed a deal with the devil. The stormy clouds were spreading across the entire neighborhood now.

_"Good, because you're going to need help. Your school is the most important place to start. You need to increase your social circle, include anyone with considerable political acumen or mystical ability. They will be your foundation. From there you can reach their parents in the Ministry and their grandparents in the Wizengamot. This is important, because both Voldemort and Dumbledore are the only major factions represented in either branch of the government,"_ answered the raven of steel.

_"How can Voldemort still have a faction in the government if everybody thinks he's dead?"_ asked Harry, who was beginning to feel more and more stupid with every passing moment. This conversation, with what he assumed to be a multidimensional being, was becoming a lecture on the path his life will take in regards to fate and destiny, and he wasn't sure how he felt about that.

_"It's his ideals more than anything, or at least the ideals he used to gain power. Keep in mind that he was secretive beyond anything else, keeping most of his plans to himself. He chose the faction that was, the eminent political power of the day, the conservative voting bloc of the Wizengamot. He spouted the beliefs they held but dared not speak in public, so many flocked to him,"_ continued the stone cold avian.

_"Their political beliefs?"_ prompted the adventurous young lad. The storm outside seemed to be calming down as it spread, which seemed weird to Harry but he wasn't a weatherman so he didn't know what was strange about it.

_"Blood superiority, in essence. They used him as a mascot, similar to how Nazis used Adolf Hitler as theirs. Even if he himself wasn't the ideal specimen for their political beliefs, he was a charismatic man, a great leader as I've defined it. Both committed horrible crimes, but they were supported by the stronger political party. And Voldemort was aware of this. He lived in a muggle orphanage within London up until he turned seventeen in nineteen forty five, the year the Second World War finally ended,"_ answered the crimson eyed bird of shadows.

_"So he emulated a man that bombed his home? Isn't that a little... convoluted? It just doesn't make any sense,"_ questioned the hero chosen by prophesy.

_"He craved attention, and had the potential to be a great leader. He also had the tendency to hurt those around him simply because he could. It's behavior he picked up at the orphanage, I'm sure; survival of the fittest isn't really the best environment to develop in for a growing spellcraft user,"_ answered the phantasmal creature, who was beginning to wonder if answering so many questions so fast would be a good thing or a bad thing in the long run.

_"How so?"_ asked Harry James Potter. The dark clouds outside were turning grey as the drifted farther and farther away.

_"Rather than having accidental spellcraft kick in occasionally to get him out of sticky situations, he gained some measure of control over his energy and used it to enact vengeance upon his bullies. And afterwards, he realized that he had the power to bring pain unto others the way the did to him. So he harmed others, gaining more and more control over his energy as time went. He understood the human mind rather well on a practical level, being both the victim and victor at different points in time."_

_"You know an awful lot about him..."_ suspiciously said the Boy-Who-Lived. A distant boom of thunder sounded out.

_"I know about lots of things, but that doesn't mean I'll tell you _everything_. But I will tell you this: great leaders almost always have skeletons in their closets. Dumbledore is a prime example of this. Have you thought about how he got all those positions at once?"_ questioned the ebony creature of eldritch flames for the second time in so many minutes.

_"No, we've been carrying a conversation the whole time,"_ justified the aspiring trouble magnet. How should he know that he was expected to know the answers to questions that he hadn't even thought about even remotely, especially off the top of his head at the drop of a hat? This rapid fire lecture style was going to give him a headache if it kept up at this rate.

_"I'm disappointed, though I suppose I shouldn't have expected any better. It was his legendary duel with Gellert Grindelwald, an event that he put off until the last possible moment. He could've stepped in much earlier to end the horrors that Grindelwald unleashed upon the world, but he didn't act. And when he finally did make a move, it was a twenty hour long duel? Duels rarely last longer than twenty seconds, let alone twenty hours. And upon victory, he returned with a_ phoenix _of all things sitting on his shoulder while the public cried for him to be given as many positions of power as possible?"_ said the being of immeasurable power.

_"I admit that sounds suspicious, but I'd like to research this before jumping to conclusions,"_ responded Harry. It was a reasonable request, something that even the most dimwitted of people would likely have thought to do. And besides, why would he just take the word of some alien _thing_ that showed up in his bedroom without any warning whatsoever just to force him into connecting his mind with it and begin mentoring him in the methods of gaining power?

_"A wise decision, oh great leader,"_ sarcastically remarked the cold, bloodshot raven. The wind howled, and Harry chuckled in amusement.

_"You know, you never did tell me your name,"_ said Harry.

The bird tilted its head in an odd facsimile of curiosity before disappearing in a burst of black flames, in much the same manner as he appeared several hours ago; seemingly to nowhere. But Harry suddenly felt a warmth flowing through his body, an inexplicable warmth that had the same dark, cold, hard feeling as the bird that claimed to be his familiar. _"You may call me Equinox, young Harry,"_ said the raven.

_"So what should I do now?"_ asked Harry, not quite sure what to do now that he had a raven-phoenix _thing_ living inside his body. It felt disturbingly _right_ as if it'd always belonged where it now resided, which kept Harry wary of a variety of reasons.

_"I think a trip to Gringotts should be in order..." _answered the fiery bird of steel and shadows. _"After, of course, you send out some letters to certain people. You need to start networking if you want any chance to succeed in changing the world. I have suggestions for who you should initiate correspondence with..."_


	3. Act One: Inheritance

**Act One: Inheritance**

* * *

><p>Harry reappeared in the main foyer of Gringotts in a brilliant flash of black fire, the entryway bright in the early morning sunlight by now. <em>"That was incredible,"<em> said Harry, having never before traveled via phoenix-flashing. It was a strange feeling, but not an altogether bad one; the process felt like sitting next to a heater during a very cold day; pleasant, though somewhat painful.

Phoenix-flashing was unlike any other kind of magical transportation available to humans, even though Harry had yet to feel anything beyond flooing so far. He felt his companion burst into flames while still somehow inside him, and the shadowy flames leapt to his flesh eagerly, catching him on fire much faster than a normal blaze would ever be able to do.

He felt the dark conflagration consuming his body, but there was no pain. And rather than burning to ashes, the fire burned all the way through him and he felt himself _become_ fire. Then the flames of his existence went out in Number Four, Privet Drive and and blazed up in the Gringotts Bank.

Nearby guards leveled all sorts of nasty weapons at them; swords, maces, spears, daggers, and axes. There was a big difference between the goblins behind the counters and kiosks that were mostly just accountants, and the much larger, armored goblins that wielded heavy weaponry and were situated at regular intervals along the wall. Gulping dramatically, Harry said, "I come in peace."

He noticed that the goblins acting as security guards were much larger and fiercer than the rest, and remembered Professor Binns droning on about the importance of the two different breeds of goblins to their many rebellions. The warrior class were the krogan, and the intellectuals were the kezan. _"Hey Equinox, what's the difference between krogan and kezan? I wasn't really listening when Binns explained it, or when Hermione reiterated it..."_ asked Harry.

He could somehow feel the bird give a tremendous sigh before answering, _"The big ones are the krogan; they're guards and soldiers for the Unified Goblin Nations."_ He could see that they were powerful warrior types, almost five feet tall and, Harry guessed, weighing nearly a half a ton when armored. _"If you ever get in a fight with one, remember that they have an extra heart, four lungs, and four testicles,"_ continued the fiery avian.

_"I wasn't planning on it. By the way, why do they have so many?"_ wondered Harry. He barely remembered something about their camel-like humps allowing them to survive for long periods of time with meager food or water, but he didn't remember anything about them having so many extra body parts.

_"They act as back-ups in case the primary structures got too heavily damaged. Also, they have a secondary nervous system that makes paralyzing them almost impossible, even with stunning spells,"_ the shadowy phoenix replied. He smiled when a memory bubbled up, one of Hermione agonizing over wizards not having a proper term for the neuroconductive fluid circulating through their bodies alongside their blood. She stressed how important it was for us to understand and appreciate all the magical races, but Harry was too busy thinking about Snape and the Philosopher's Stone at the time.

Again, this was a prime example of his odd thought processes taking over when he was in the middle of something relatively important. He'd 'failed the test spectacularly' in Hermione's eyes, getting a seventy percent. Gods he hated History of Magic-

His attention snapped back to the present, and he realized that the krogan were staring at him with their predatory, beady eyes. He could've sworn he saw one or two close to laughing at his comment, but didn't know what to do beyond this point. Without further ado, he turned and walked up to the nearest teller, whose eyes were following his movements just as intently as everyone else in the bank. He looked at the kezan straight in the eye, hoping that would somehow make him more likeable.

If it weren't for Equinox's warmth spreading through his chest reassuringly, Harry might have been a little shy at all the attention. Holding out a hand expectantly, the tiny humanoid behind the counter said, "Key?" It took a few seconds for Harry to remember exactly where the key was, but he found it after a few moments of digging around unceremoniously in a pocket of his blue jeans, grinning sheepishly at the sneer from the goblin. "Very well Mr. Potter," growled the stumpy being. So much for being more likeable through assertive body language.

"Oh, but before we go to my vault, I'd like to talk with my account manager about something," said Harry. He was beginning to feel a strange sense of deja vu, as if he'd been through this procedure hundreds, no thousands of times. This particular sequence of events felt cliche, contrite, and _quaint_ to him, even though he'd never personally done this before. It was strange, but that was the best way he could explain it.

Rolling its eyes in annoyance, the goblin said, "Come with me." Harry nodded and followed the goblin quietly, knowing that it would be the most respectful and expedient route to take for him considering the circumstances. He knew that replying in a snippy manner would probably not end very well for him, but he still kind of wanted to give a tiny kick to the little insufferable bastard before him.

For centuries all goblins were basically treated as second class citizens in Britain, only tolerated for their usefulness to wizards, though never allowed to own a wand. It wasn't like they couldn't use magic without a wand, but the insult implied with the exclusivity of rights with favor towards wizards by a governmental institution of magical authority was enough to piss many of the reptilian hominids off. It was sanctioned wholeheartedly by the wizarding public because goblins were _known_ to be bloodthirsty and brutal in combat.

The legendary goblin 'blood rage' added to the race's reputation for being notoriously difficult to kill or incapacitate in normal combat scenarios, especially the krogan variety. In this mental state, goblins become totally unresponsive to pain and will fight to the death regardless of injury level, with the side effect of reducing their capacity for logic and self-control, relying almost totally on ascribed and acquired instincts. And those instincts are honed through several human lifetimes of rigorous physical training and intense conquests against other magical races. Their claws, fangs, and horns could all be used as weapons, but so could the spines of their body's natural armor and any blades that they themselves forged.

As Harry began recalling more and more information about goblins that Hermione and Binns had droned on and on about over the past few years, he followed his chauffeur, who he now recognized as Griphook, through a door that led to a corridor, that anticlimactically led to another door. And as they walked through the hallway to an office, Equinox said, "_Alright, now when you're in there, ask for an inheritance test, and a transaction summary of all accounts you currently own. If I'm right, then you'll be quite angry with Albus Dumbledore…"_

The goblin ran his claw down the length of the door, which was made of some black material, and it swung open to admit them. Harry entered the room beyond, but Griphook turned and left with a slightly feral grin on its face. The door closed quietly behind him, but his attention was largely taken up by the room and didn't even notice. All thoughts about goblin physiological and psychological makeup were forgotten in the presence of such splendor.

There were all sorts of priceless works of art scattered about the enormous room, statues and weapons of precious metals that were tastefully placed all over the walls. Gems and jewels seemed bedazzled into every surface, making the room look like a bowl of multicolored candy. And there were probably twice as many gadgets and gizmos lying all over the place than Dumbledore's office at Hogwarts, all of which had functions and purposes that were indecipherable to Harry's mere glance.

_"The kezan breed of goblins are small humanoid beings. They bare an overwhelming interest in commerce and a strong curiosity about mechanical things, they are universally viewed by other races as inventors, merchants and maniacs. Some say that their curse is to be the primary users of technology in a society governed by magic. While dwarves and gnomes share similar gifts, kezan commercial policies make a larger impact on the natural world,"_ said Equinox, summing up several years of magical education concisely.

An enormous desk was facing the door that he just entered through, and a fireplace was glowing merrily just behind it. Sitting at the desk was a goblin that wore golden armor and a red cape, giving off an air of royalty and wealth that Harry doubted most humans could afford. The effect was somewhat ruined by the kezan being barely three feet tall, but only they were given positions of power in Gringotts. Before he could stop himself, he said, "Nice office." The goblin didn't seem to be expecting such a blasé statement from the thirteen year old, and let out a gruff bark of laughter.

"Indeed Mr. Potter. How can I be of service to you?" asked the kezan. Harry knew that the being before him was obscenely wealthy just from the various gilded knick knacks and complicated mechanical devices scattered about the room, and was much older than even Dumbledore. Sheer physical hardiness would allow an individual goblin to live for centuries, if their dangerous hobbies and wars didn't kill them.

As if reading his thoughts, Equinox added in, _"A lucky goblin can live for well over a thousand years, as evidenced by Warlord Bwa'Kell. He Warlord was a veteran of the very first Goblin Rebellion, who died (of decidedly unnatural causes) well over a eleven centuries after that particular rebellion ended. And most wizards look down on them simply for being ugly, according to human standards. It's a stupid mindset to have, and most sadly have it even today."_

"There are actually quite a few things we need to discuss. But before I say anything, you must swear a magical pledge to never reveal these secrets to anybody unless I say otherwise. Is that agreed upon?" asked Harry mildly. He was somewhat following the silent script that was being read to him by his raven-phoenix thing named Equinox, but it came out sounding natural enough for his purposes.

_"It is crucial to note the difference between a magical vow and a magical pledge. A magical vow is simply an agreement between two parties, usually binding through negative consequences; things such as loss of magic or life are typically used. A magical pledge, on the other hand is essentially a Geis, a type of contractual enchantment that mystically restricts one's actions, forcing them to follow through with whatever they agreed upon,"_ explained Harry's familiar.

The goblin chieftain peered at Harry, snarling slightly before grimly smiling. Firmly, the goblin said, "That's a wise precaution. Most of your kind just assume that there's a confidentiality agreement between us, but if they haven't made a binding magical contract there's nothing to keep me from blabbing their secrets. Very well. I, Ironhide of the Sabreclaw Clan, pledge to not reveal your secrets to anyone else unless you deem otherwise."

_"Goblin society is fragmented, defined chiefly by the trade princes that rule over the various goblin holdings around the world, all of which have the backing of a powerful clan. Though they all live in the Goblin Nation's capital city, whose name and location remain secret to outsiders, every prince controls their own private armies and trade fleets, as well cartels and mobs, mining and deforestation operations, slave rings, and magical poachers. Not the nicest bunch, by any means,"_ added Equinox.

Harry nodded and finished the ritual with the goblin by saying, "So mote it be." There was a brief flash of light that illuminated the lavishly decorated office before they looked at each other again. There was a slight shift in the kezan's stance, as if the goblin suddenly understood that the boy before him actually knew what he was doing. It was ironic, especially considering the fact that Harry had absolutely no clue what he was doing.

Repeating the statement he made prior to the verbal agreement, Ironhide said, "What is it that you'd like to discuss first?" No doubt the boy's insistence upon using a magical pledge to assure confidentiality filled the accountant with curiosity. It wasn't everyday that the goblin managed to be talking to the owner of the Potter Estate either, which added to the intriguing air of mystique surrounding the human.

And so Harry told him the first order of business.

Goblins had been dealing with humans for centuries, and were taught at a young age how to discover deception, or emotions in general, in the remarkably easy to read faces of most humans and use that to manipulate the situation to their advantage. That being said, it was an uncommon occurrence for a chieftain like Ironhide to emulate his human customers, but he allowed his face to show confusion on this occasion. "This is most troubling, if what you say is true. Very well, I shall have the materials necessary for an Inheritance Test brought to us immediately. Is there anything else for the moment?" said the accountant.

Harry shook his head, and they waited in silence. The member of the Sabreclaw clan watched his client carefully, noting that the human seemed to be deep in thought about something, or even having a silent conversation with himself. Within two minutes of companionable silence, Griphook entered with the Inheritance Testing Parchment and a Ritual Dagger. Knowing what to do, as if following instructions from a third party that the goblins weren't privy to, Harry sliced open his palm and let a few drops fall onto the parchment before anybody could even give him instructions. As the blood landed on the parchment, words began to form:

* * *

><p><em>Harry James Potter is the rightful heir and sole beneficiary of the following:<em>

_The Most Ancient and Revered House of Gryffindor  
>The Most Ancient and Revered House of Peverell<em>_  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter<em>_

_Harry James Potter is the bloodline heir to the following:_

_The Most Ancient and Revered House of Gryffindor__  
><em>The Most Ancient and Revered House of <em>__Peverell  
><em>_The Most Ancient and Revered House of __Slytherin  
><em>_The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black  
><em>_The Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter_

_Harry James Potter can lay claim to the following noble houses:_

_The Most Ancient and Revered House of Slytherin__  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy<em>  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Lestrange<em>  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black<em>  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Gaunt<em>_

_Harry James Potter has marriage contracts with:_

_The Most Ancient and Revered House of Greengrass__  
><em>The Most Ancient and Revered House of Lovegood<em>  
><em>The Most Ancient and Revered House of Bones<em>  
><em>The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black<em>_

* * *

><p>The account manager stared in surprise at the parchment, seemingly stupefied by sheer disbelief. Ironhide continued with awe in his voice, "Well that was unexpected…" Seeing Harry's blanks stare, the goblin continued, "You do understand the significance of this?"<p>

"Absolutely," responded Harry. Internally he said, _"Not a clue. I don't even know the difference between a revered house and a noble house. Care to enlighten me?"_

At this point, the bird sighed dramatically, _"The Revered houses are the old Celtic families that founded the Wizengamot about a millennia ago, after your Merlin created their Most Ancient Hall."_ This phoenix knew an awful lot about human history, but Harry expected he would be too if he'd actually paid attention in his History of Magic classes, or Binns had even covered it.

_"So they're only more prestigious because they're older?"_ asked Harry. Something about that didn't sit right with him, most likely due to the fact that he was a relative newcomer to the world of magic, and his best friend was a first generation witch. He idly wondered if Hermione even knew about the way the nobility of her new world was set up. He didn't think so, because she'd likely start a crusade in the name of peasants. That was just the way she was, and he loved her for it.

_"Not entirely. Each of these families has a unique bloodline ability that can be unlocked, giving their descendants strange powers even compared to the rest of the magical world. Slytherin's, as I'm sure you're well acquainted with, was the most famous, the Parseltongue. And beyond the Revered families, all noble lines possess Family Crests, which store knowledge gained by members of the family and gets passed on to their descendants. The knowledge is cumulative, which is why the Most Ancient and Revered Houses were considered to be so powerful and illustrious. By now, those Crests have the knowledge of upwards of twenty generations of magical experimentation," _said Equinox.

_"Why would they go to Hogwarts if they had generations worth of knowledge at their disposal?"_ asked Harry.

_"Mostly because the school acts more as a prelude to the real world, a place to socialize and form political alliances. They also don't have access to their Family Crests until they are seventeen for the most part, which also means that they typically can't use their bloodline abilities."_ To emphasize the point, Equinox decided to add, _"If you come across the scion of a Most Ancient and Revered House, you would do well to avoid armed conflict because you will likely lose."_

Harry nodded to show his understanding and the intangible shadow continued, _"The Celtic Druids learned transfiguration by studying the Fae of their homelands, creatures that embody mutability with their ability to bend reality to their wills. They are beings of great power rivaled only by the High Elves of the Nordic lands. Since then, the Fae have all but disappeared from the face of the Earth, along with most other higher dimensional beings that had deep connections with nature. Human pollution has really done a number on the planet..."_ said the black avien, it's clipped tone imitating Harry's voice perfectly.

_"I don't see how the Celts could win when the odds were so against them," _said Harry. _"I also remember a Greek sorcerer named Circe that could use transfiguration to change men into pigs and vice versa, even though she was around well before the Roman invasion of Albion. Though I suppose that could just be a muggle myth..." _Again, he was coming across a moment where the line between reality and fantasy blurred, simply because he lived in a world where history became legend and myth.

Equinox brought up a point, _"At the root of muggle myths, there was some amount of truth. Circe was a powerful sorceress that lived during the Age of the Gods, when magic was far more powerful and wild. She was one of the first practitioners of the Hermetic style of spellcraft, which is still taught in Hogwarts. This Greco-Roman style was based on natural philosophy and the scientific method, which spread throughout Europe due to the Roman Empire. And the Romans are renowned for taking the best parts of the cultures they dominated and integrating those aspects into their own."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"When the Romans invaded Brittania, they used the many forms of magic taken from their prior conquests: Egyptian wandlore, Greek divination, Germanic charms, Babylonian enchantments, Arabian numerology, Chinese alchemy, Sumerian wards, and Scandinavian runic symbols, they couldn't compete with Celtic transfiguration."_

_"So what exactly does this have to do with the difference between Revered and Noble Houses?"_ asked Harry. Luckily for him, this telepathic exchange between himself and his familiar was instantaneous, at the speed of thought. Their internal dialogue could continue for quite a while before anybody truly noticed anything happening, which meant that he could talk to his familiar pretty much whenever he wanted.

_"Ah, right; there was a peace treaty that led to the integration of Roman families into the Wizengamot in the form of Most Ancient and Noble Houses. These families swore oaths of nonaggression to the Revered families for unity. Most of the Revered families have died out in the male line with the exception of a few, meaning that the names are gone but the blood is still going through the Most Ancient and Noble Houses. In fact, most of your schoolmates are probably distant relatives of yours..."_ implied the bird.

Harry was suddenly very glad that he hadn't dated any girls yet, since nothing would ruin the mood faster than finding out your girlfriend was your cousin. He was, however, a hormonal teenage boy and still thought about many of the girls he went to school with in lecherous ways. Girls of all shapes and sizes were appreciated by his green eyes, and he would gladly do despicable things to them, on them, in them... Maybe magic allowed for an amount of attractiveness sorely lacking in mundane women, but he no longer had an eye for non-magical ladies, unless they were insanely beautiful.

Nothing catches the eye like magically enhanced breasts and butts. There was an unnatural amount of perkiness and size that went into them, making them possess a surreal grace that was worthy of praises and gifts. Either that or he was more of a pervert than he thought. But he was okay with that, because he was far from innocent. His mind was corrupted long ago by the boys he shared a dorm with.

_"Then you have, of course, the Saxon, Norman, German, French, and Norwegian families that were added after their respective invasions. They don't have as much political influence in the Wizengamot as the Most Ancient and Revered Houses or the Most Ancient and Noble Houses. However, they have produced some families of note,"_ said the avian. _"All of which have sworn oaths of nonagression to the Most Ancient and Noble Houses. Out of these vassal states rose the most evil Dark Lord of all time, Gellert Grindelwald,"_ continued Equinox.

Harry had heard of a Dark Lord Grindelwald, since Dumbledore defeated him in 1945 and in doing so ended the Second World War. Something about the avian being's words made Harry feel uncomfortable, and he just couldn't help but to bring the matter up. _"Are you sure? Because I've been told that Voldemort was the most evil Dark Lord of all time-"_

_"Dark Lady Morgana was the most powerful, Dark Lord Zeref was the most deadly, Dark Lord Grindelwald was the most evil, and Dark Lord Voldemort was the most feared. Do you see a pattern among them? All of them lived in Britain, or Britannia, or Albion depending on the time period,"_ said the familiar, which was somewhat morbid now that it was actually pointed out to Harry. Was there something in the water there? _"Plus they might've all been related to one another..."_

_"Wait, Voldemort had a family?"_ asked a stunned Harry. Of course the man did, but Harry couldn't help but think they must've been really fucked up for him to turn out the way he was. Then again, Salazar Slytherin _had_ bred a gigantic toxic snake and placed it in a school to kill children that had nonmagical parentage. Of course, the difference between the Founder of Hogwarts and the Dark Lord was over a millennium, but anybody willing to leave a homicidal legacy behind in an educational institution probably had children just as bat-shit crazy as he was.

_"Yes. He is the heir to the Gaunt and Slytherin family lines but never received his Crests. The fact that he could actually speak Parseltongue just shows how magically powerful he was, since Family Crests are typically used to unlock bloodlines on top of storing knowledge, which kept the old families safe from breeding programs to replicate their unique powers. However, some of the stronger heirs could activate lower forms of their bloodlines without the help of Crests. Voldemort is a prime example of this, his magic broke through the bloodline restriction enough to allow a weaker manifestation. Parseltongue is typically much more than simply talking to snakes, but you can find that out later..."_ said the goblin.

How the bird knew what Parseltongue actually allowed one to do, Harry didn't know. And he was a little scared to ask, so he didn't. _"I'm surprised I was capable of using Parseltongue as well, since I know I haven't come into contact with Slytherin's Crest. Besides, I'm fairly certain that I'm not descended from Slytherin in the first place... But anyway, what does any of this have to do with stopping Voldemort? Learning about the past is fun and all, but I just don't see how this can apply to the current situation,"_ said Harry_._

Equinox scoffed at him, which felt strange inside his mind, and said, _"The best way to end a reign of darkness is to prevent it in the first place. Voldemort's followers are radical blood purist conservatives and they have connections. They can claim the majority vote in the Wizengamot fairly easily within the next few years, and then pass discriminatory laws against supposed dark creatures. Since it would appear that the Ministry is being oppressive, the dark creatures would support Voldemort in overthrowing a tyrannical system that he created for the express purpose of gaining more power. For now, your best bet is to stick with Dumbledore. Though he's actually just as bad, just not an_ immediate _threat to you."_

_"Really?"_ asked Harry inquisitively. "_I don't think Dumbledore is a threat. I don't believe you, and I won't until you can provide more than just circumstantial evidence." _But then again, how was he able to have such ridiculous adventures in a school? Trolls, a powerful dark wizard, enchanted chess sets, devil's snare, a cerberus, a cursed broom, a cursed bludger, an evil diary, giant spiders, giant snakes, a living memory of a powerful dark wizard, an escaped convict, a supposedly dead man, a werewolf, soul-sucking fiends...

Equinox snorted and said, "_You'll find out the truth by the time this day is over. But we'll worry about that later. For now, we need to plan how to help you gain control over the Wizengamot before Voldemort does. The most effective route would be to get you emancipated, which would require your godfather, Sirius Black, to be exonerated. And to do that, we'll need an investigator and a solicitor. I know some that would be incredibly helpful, plus you could potentially elevate them to noble status so that they could support you in the future..."_

_"... Alrighty then, now that I know what the difference is between a Revered and Noble house... I guess we should talk more about that list. I'm not sure what being a bloodline inheritor means, nor am I sure what it means being able to lay claim to a House, but I can guess. By being the sole beneficiary, I'm now considered the scion of Peverell and Potter automatically and likely have access to all of their estates?"_ asked Harry.

_"There's more to it than that,"_ said Equinox. _"As the Scion, you have the right to both Family Crests, which will fully awaken your bloodlines from them. However, you can't access your family vaults without explicit permission from your Stewart since you're underage, which is a bit of a sticky situation with you at the moment. At fourteen you can begin sitting in on Wizengamot meetings, though you can't make actual decisions until you're seventeen or older. This gives you a few years to get used to the system without painting a huge target on your back."_

_"Well who's the Stewart of House Potter?"_ asked Harry. He received a metaphysical eye-roll from the bird, and he sighed before turning to the goblin, "Could you tell me who the Steward for House Potter?" He felt stupid showing a lack of information to a being as unrelenting and mischievous as a goblin, but there really wasn't any other choice in the matter that he could see. Somehow, he felt as if he just failed a small test that his bird had given him, though he wasn't entirely sure how else this could've gone down for him.

The goblin pulled out a sheet of paper and looked over it for a moment before saying, "The Steward of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter is Albus Dumbledore. It didn't seem like it was going to stop any time soon, and the goblin continued, "As the steward of House Potter, he can appoint whoever he wants as Regent of the House, who can claim your family's ancestral Wizengamot seat, and he chose one Severus Snape."

_"Okay, what the fuck,"_ said Harry, some seeds of doubt finally starting to drill their way into his mind. They were using his house's automatic vote, which likely carried some considerable weight behind it since it was a Most Ancient and Noble House, for gods know what behind his back. And Dumbledore had given the position to the one man in the world that Harry hated almost as much as the murderer of his parents. Harry's fist clenched, and he imagined that it would be quite satisfying to break the old man's already crooked nose at that particular moment in the fabric of space and time.

"He has been making withdrawals from the Potter Family Vault with impunity due to his legal rights as Steward, but that money is his payment for upkeep of the family name and estate. He hasn't been able to take anything other than liquid assets, so family heirlooms are still intact in your vault," said the kezan, who sounded a curious mixture of gleeful and annoyed. On one hand he got to watch a human suffer, but on the other this particular human was responsible for the death of the Dark Lord.

"That's good... I guess..." mumbled Harry, his eyes growing dazed as he really thought about it.

You'd think that a man hailed the world over as a hero and genius would have enough money that he wouldn't need to drain the accounts of war orphans. His accomplishments in the field of alchemy alone, namely discovering the twelve uses of dragon's blood, were accredited as being the greatest single advance in the school since the invention of lacrima by Nicholas Flamel (or the joint project between him and Van Hoenheim to create the first ever Philosopher's Stone). But no, he required compensation for his generous services.

"However, there are fees that all Noble families must pay to keep their titles, taxes on land holdings, payment to all members of the family's staff, tithes to the government, and tariffs on most business expenses overseas... Almost all of the gold that once resided in your family's main vault is now gone," said Ironhide of the Sabreclaw clan, that weird tone of his voice still there. Harry supposed that made some sense, but he still felt irrational anger flaring up in the pit of his stomach, straining his muscles with barely contained rage.

Harry was stunned. "So Dumbledore had no way of making money at all? How could he just throw away the fortune of a noble family in just over a decade? That's just... unreal." He felt a tiny amount of anger towards the Headmaster now, wondering when the man was planning on informing him of his direct role of negligent caretaker in regards to his familial funds. Maybe the old man never did plan on it, a soft voice in the back of Harry's mind whispered. His jaw clenched quite tightly at the thought.

And Equinox began, "_And he has done so much more! He used his influence as the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot to prevent Social Services from checking in on you from time to time, and refused to place you in foster care. You've been living in the custody of your abusive and neglectful aunt and uncle for the past thirteen years, and have only now been able to get out of it because of Hogwarts. He wanted you to be so craving of attention and love that he could manipulate you into being loyal to him! But that comes in later-_"

_"Just shut up about that for the moment, would you? I've had too many Earth shattering revelations over the past few hours because of you, and I really don't think I can handle too many more. I'll believe your claims about Dumbledore being evil when I see it, but he just seems a bit incompetent or insane at the moment. For now, I'm gonna pretend you don't exist..."_

"There were a few investments that had high potential awards but all fell through, plus there's a lot of money caught up in property escrow. Potter Manor was destroyed by Death Eaters in search of you after you became the Boy-Who-Lived as a form of petty revenge, and most businesses that your family owned were bought out by Lords Greengrass, Malfoy, and Nott; they all collaborated to create the company Viper Enterprises, which has been gaining quite a bit of economic power lately," said Ironhide.

"So I'm pretty much starting from scratch?" he asked blankly. There was something inherently wrong with the thought of him actually needing a job to support him going to school when muggles could go to public school for free, but he supposed that there really wasn't much that he could do about that at the moment. The idea of getting power and changing the system from within sounded better and better with every passing moment though.

"There's still about a thousand galleons in the ancestral vault, but you'd still need permission from your Steward to access them. You still have your trust fund account, which has grown from the bounty for the Dark Lord's death and licensing payments for using your face and name as celebrity endorsements for a slew of products and a line of books, but it's still nowhere near what your family had but fifteen years ago," said the goblin.

Harry sighed. "I guess I'm gonna have to get a job or something, but... can I set up a personal checking account?" He had a feeling that it would be a longshot, but if he could somehow manage to get at least a thin veil of privacy between himself and the nosy Headmaster, maybe he would be able to get to the bottom of the mystery: was Dumbledore a senile old man whose competence was severely questionable, so evil and cunning that he could trick the entire world into believing anything that spewed out of his mouth, or a lazy piece of shit? The latter seemed improbable to Harry, so it was either of the two former.

Both possibilities made him feel distinctly queasy, though for entirely different reasons.

"Well Mr. Potter, you could... if you could procure a signature from your guardian granting you permission to do so. But that's a very sticky situation with you, isn't it? Since your Ministry approved guardian is Albus Dumbledore, but your Gringotts approved guardian is Sirius Black, and you're muggle approved guardian is Vernon Dursley... this is a fairly complicated ordeal at the moment," said the kezan.

"So I can't access my funds without asking for permission from Dumbledore, I can't make more money without asking for permission from Dumbledore, and most of my wealth has been squandered by Dumbledore?" asked Harry in deadpan. But then he remembered, "Oh wait, what about the Peverell Account? Surely that one's doing well?"

"Nobody can even enter the Peverell Family Vault unless they've gained the allegiance of the family's three greatest treasures: the Cloak of Invisibility, the Resurrection Stone, and the Elder Wand; not even you. Just because you're the rightful heir doesn't mean that you can access anything, it just means that you have the potential to. You must control the modernly christened Deathly Hallows in order to fulfill the criteria needed to enter that vault, which is actually where the Peverell Family Crest is hidden."

_"And I'd need the Family Crest to awaken their bloodline, and gain their knowledge?"_ asked Harry. This was quite the obstacle, but he felt confident that he'd be able to find the three objects. How difficult could it possibly be to locate and control the Deathly Hallows?

_"Technically you could potentially awaken a lower form of their bloodline ability through sheer force of magic or trauma, but I wouldn't recommend it. The Peverell ability has been known to be... volatile to the user even in its more stable form. You can, however, access the Potter Family Vault presently and accept the Potter Family Crest,"_ replied Equinox.

_"By the way, what are the bloodline abilities of the Potter and Peverell families?"_ asked Harry curiously.

_"The Peverell Family had something called the Mystic Eyes of Misery, which could be upgraded to the Mystic Eyes of Agony. What all they do is currently a mystery, but they are renowned for giving the Peverell brothers almost unmatched knowledge of magical theory and combat. The Potter Family is renowned for having special gifts in the mental arts, though what exactly that entails is currently unknown,"_ said Equinox. Sensing Harry's annoyance, he continued, _"The old families kept their greatest abilities a secret so nobody could exploit any of their weaknesses, due to a misbegotten sense of paranoia. The reason Parseltongue is so well known is that Voldemort wasn't exactly subtle..."_

Harry nodded and asked, _"So what about the fact that I'm a bloodline inheritor of certain families? What exactly does that mean?"_

_"It means that you have the potential to unlock the bloodline abilities of those families, either impartially through force or completely through contact with their Family Crests. However, since you aren't the Scion of those families, you cannot access the knowledge stored on the Crest, only awaken your bloodline. Otherwise, everybody would use everyone's Crests to gain unlimited knowledge and power. However, if you were to become the head of another noble house through marriage or fealty, you could gain access to a portion of the Crest's knowledge," _answered the intangible firebird.

_"And the families that I'm a blood inheritor to that we haven't already discussed, Gryffindor and Black, what are their bloodline abilities?"_ asked Harry with a small tilt of curiosity to his head.

_"The Black family has produced many accomplished metamorphmagi in the past, capable of even changing their muscle memories or skeletal density at a moment's notice. Without the Black Family Crest, you won't be able to do anything so drastic, but you could alter your hair or maybe eyes if you concentrated hard enough. As for Gryffindor... well, the Phoenix Force is largely a mystery just like the Peverell bloodline, but it is known to give power over the element of fire and control phantasmal creatures with an affinity for the_ _element." _answered Equinox.

_"There's that word again. What are phantasmal creatures?"_ asked Harry mentally. His mental projection went unnoticed by Ironhide, which was a good thing.

_"Magical beasts are separated into several different categories: monstrous beasts, phantasmal beasts, and divine beasts. All are mythical and supernatural creatures from human folklore. They gained form when ancient humans invented monsters, demons, angels, gods, and other similar things to explain natural phenomenon that they didn't understand, or to prevent children from going to dangerous places. This fostered belief in the entities, and the magic residing in those people reacted to that belief, forming the very creatures they made up in the first place out of magic," _replied Equinox.

Again, Harry's idle curiosity was getting everything off track. "So... I can lay claim to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy?" he asked with a small smirk alighting his face.

The goblin nodded and said, "If there is a grievance against you by the Scion or Head of an opposing noble family, then there will be dire consequences. If a magical oath is uttered and not carried through, then the perpetrator must be punished. It says here that the scion of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Malfoy challenged you to a wizard's duel and automatically forfeited, giving you his honor and allowing you to lay claim to the Malfoy Estate in its entirety."

Harry frowned and asked, "What about the Slytherin, Gaunt, Lestrange, and Black families?"

"It seems that an assassination attempt by the last Scion of both Slytherin and Gaunt, the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, gave his honor to you as well. As for the Lestrange Family, their estate was assimilated into the Malfoy Estate when the head of the family was incarcerated in Azkaban, so you automatically gain their property by proxy of the Malfoys' should you win the lawsuit. And it seems that the last Lord Black, Sirius Black, made a promise to your parents to raise you, yet didn't fulfill that promise. Of course, there are extenuating circumstances, and he named you his sole heir and beneficiary with one Remus Lupin as the executor of the estate..." muttered the kezan.

"You mentioned something about a lawsuit?" prompted the raven haired boy.

The goblin accountant nodded and said, "It is standard procedure for such claims to be presented as a case to the Wizengamot as a whole. There will be prosecutors, witnesses, a jury, a judge, the whole gauntlet. If you win, everyone will know what the opposition did to you, what their punishment was, and that you won't put up with slights against your families' honor any longer."

_"Can't lawsuits go either way though? What happens if I lose?"_ asked Harry, not knowing if he even really wanted to know the answer.

_"The spoils of war go to the victor, as they say. If you lose, your Estate and titles will be forcibly seized from you and handed to the winner of the case. I'm pretty sure the Malfoys would likely win since you can't access your vault to procure funds for a solicitor as a minor, nor can you hire a lawyer without the consent of your guardian. And while I think Dumbledore would gladly try to take capital from the Malfoy family, he wouldn't really want it going to you either. Plus the old man could simply take it from you as the Steward of House Potter as a residencial fee," _explained the shadowy avian.

Harry sighed and said, _"So most of the Potter fortune has been eaten up by Dumbledore's stupidity/insanity/evilness, and I can't access the Peverell fortune until I get the three hallows. I could gain the Malfoy and Lestrange fortunes by beating Lucius Malfoy in a lawsuit, but that would require money, and I could take my godfather's account but don't want to because he's nice to me..."_ This was frustrating but, "How much is in the Gaunt and Slytherin estates?" he asked the goblin aloud.

"Both are practically empty, cleaned out long ago by the inbred purebloods who didn't seem to care about the next generation," replied Ironhide dryly. Harry was seriously contemplating banging his head repeatedly on the desk in front of him, even if he had to move certain gadgets and gizmos out of the way to do so. It just looked so tempting, the hard wood... Maybe if he did it hard enough, he would die and go to an afterlife that actually went his way.

Somehow, he sorely doubted that would happen, and gave a resigned sigh before asking the question that needed to get asked, _"So where exactly does that leave us?"_

_"Essentially back to square one, but you do have the rights of a Most Ancient and Revered House, so things will be going easier for you. However, as a minor you still can't really do a whole lot by yourself. You need the permission of a Steward to make noble decisions because you're underage, and the permission of a guardian to do anything as a citizen for the same reason. In a nutshell, you either need to get emancipated or become an adult to do anything..." _replied the fiery shadow.

Harry sighed, wondering how this could happen. He was feeling oppressed for not having freedoms that he wasn't even aware of a day earlier! Feeling incredibly weird, Harry said, "That's really all that I can think of, so I'll be going to my vault now." Ironhide nodded his consent and followed Harry out, returning back to the majestic entryway.

The unlikely duo quickly piled into one of Gringotts's infamous carts and took off incredibly quickly into the catacombs and caverns. Cold wind whipped past them as they zoomed along the track, cutting into Harry's face and eyes. Torches that occasionally were ensconced on the rocky walls seemed like blurry lines of bright orange, and at one point, though it was hard to tell due to the sheer speed of their movements, Harry could've sworn they did a loop-de-loop. "I can never remember what the difference is between a stalagmite and a stalactite," Harry said to Ironhide. He'd said much the same thing to Hagrid all those years ago, and wanted an answer this time.

"One's from the ceiling, and the other from the floor," was Ironhide's curt response. Harry was somewhat annoyed, not sure which was which. Again he was denied such an insignificant nugget of fact, but didn't say anything. To Harry, who hadn't ridden through Gringotts in over three years, it wasn't anywhere near as invasive as he remembered it being. Though if he really thought about it, his partaking in an extreme sport involving broomsticks and bludgers might have been one of the reasons he was so calm about plunging into darkness at breakneck speeds without so much as a seat belt.

The journey stopped relatively quickly and they were already at the Potter Trust Fund Vault. The goblin jumped out, ran his finger affectionately over the door, and stepped back as the enormous stone doors creaked open. This wasn't the family vault itself, just his trust fund. Ironhide handed him a pouch and said, "This Mokeskin pouch can hold up a hundred times its own volume. Take only a hundred galleons, since that's your yearly allowance as instructed by your Ministry approved guardian for this vault, so spend it well."

The Mokeskin pouch had a Widening Lip, an Undetectable Extension Charm, a Notice-Me-Not charm, and a settable password. He looked at the Mokeskin pouch and said, **"Equinox" **in parseltongue to set a password for it too. It glowed green before closing. He smiled, knowing that he could hide almost anything he wanted in such a small thing. "_I agree with your choice,"_ said Equinox. Whether the phoenix was talking about using a Parseltongue password or choosing its name as a password, Harry didn't know.

"Ministry approved?" said Harry, picking up where he faded out, "You mentioned something about that earlier. How exactly does the Ministry and Gringotts come to a disagreement on something so cut and dry?" asked Harry. "I know we broached the subject earlier, but we kind of went off on a random tangent..."

"According to Gringotts protocol, your actual guardian is Sirius Black, not Albus Dumbledore. It seems that he didn't betray your family, or else he's found a way to circumvent goblin magic, which is alien compared to human magic, something most of your kind can't even comprehend" said Griphook. At those words, Harry discovered yet another thing that the old man was controlling about his life.

"He can overrule your 'Ministry approved' guardian's decisions regarding strictly your economic state. However Dumbledore basically controls everything else about your life. If Lord Black hadn't been serving a lifetime sentence in Azkaban, you wouldn't be subjugated by Dumbledore. You see, he's still your guardian because your parents named him as such in their wills, and the magic connecting you to him wasn't severed because he was never given a trial. Because of the same clause, he is also still considered 'Lord' Black..."

"Wait, wouldn't Dumbledore have known Sirius never got a trial if Gringotts didn't accept him as my guardian?" asked Harry with a growing sense of horror. Ironhide nodded and pointed at the open vault door, conveying the message, 'Please withdraw your money quickly.' Annoyed, Harry did as he was implicitly instructed.

Harry nodded and hesitantly scooped a small pile of gold into his bag, which expanded its mouth hungrily to eat the coins. Sometimes magic was plain weird. "That pouch also has several security measures on it. You are the only person that can deposit or withdraw money from it, and only you can even notice it. To everyone else it is simply invisible," said Ironhide. Nodding happily with what the goblin said, Harry jumped back into the cart. They were soon on their way to the Potter Ancestral Vault to search for some heirlooms or something.

"You don't need to stay here with me," said Harry as they blasted down the rickety tracks. "I've got an alternative mode of travel that will get me back home once I'm done with my vault." They passed by a firebreathing dragon and pretended not to notice, coming to a stop before a massive door of black metal.

"It's Stygian Iron, capable of negating magic for defensive purposes and severing souls for offensive purposes," said Ironhide as he noticed Harry's wondering gaze. "It's supposedly mined and forged in the Greek Underworld and cooled in the River Styx, making it practically indestructible." The giant door at carved lines all over it, and Ironhide continued, "You need to offer it a blood sacrifice to open it, as it's keyed only to your blood..." Harry just wiped the cut from his previous inheritance test on the door, appeasing it.

The giant door swung open with a screeching his, quite slowly. Crossing the threshold felt like walking through pure magic to Harry, which was likely the case. Once on the other side of the door, he stopped dead. There was a small pile of gold in the center of the enormous room, the only remaining gold after all these years. He noticed piles of other things around the room too, but it was all rather lackluster. There were antique weapons and mundane armor, and ragged clothes and torn books strewn all over the place.

Right in front of him was a magical chest made of dragon scales, probably the most expensive thing in the entire vault. It didn't appear to have a lock, or any discernible way to open it, so Harry shrugged and approached it. The chest slid toward him and he nearly had a heart attack from the sudden movement.

It opened of its own accord, and Equinox commented, "_It seems to have an Undetectable Extension Charm on its insides, making it the size of a small house. And its password protected, and you can set the password to any language." _Harry knew what Equinox wanted him to do again. He looked at the trunk and, after imagining that there was a snake nearby, said **"Equinox"**. The trunk was then set to his new parseltongue password, and it began following him around the compound.

While there were tons of things in there, he found disorganized messes of random shit everywhere. "I guess my forefathers weren't much for organizing," said Harry with disdain as he hefted an umbrella made of stone. Why would anybody ever need something like that?He growled and began systematically walking through each and every room, looking for anything useful that he could put in his new Mokeskin Pouch.

The only thing that caught his attention was known as the White Phial, which held a single dosage of any potion. While that didn't sound very impressive, what did catch his attention was the fact that it replenished itself completely every single day at midnight. The suggestions written on the note next to it were polyjuice potion, felix felicious, amortentia, draught of living death, or true love's tear. Happily, he placed the White Phial and its accompanying note in his new Mokeskin Pouch.

Then he came across several bookshelves, and two books resting on pedestals. _"The book on the right is known as a grimoire. It can absorb up to a dozen books and allow its master to read any of them whenever they want. The book on the left is called a luminary, and is essentially a search engine for libraries. The Hogwarts library's luminary is hidden carefully by that insane librarian, so you've likely never seen it. I have several suggestions for what you should add to your grimoire, and the luminary would make searching much faster..."_ said Equinox.

For the next few minutes, Harry used the luminary to search the bookshelves for what his familiar suggested. A book on Wizarding Litigation and Politics, Theoretical Metaphysics, Arithmancy and Numerology, Magical Nobility and Genealogy, and mental arts. There was barely any more room for more books, but he was happy with the collection he grabbed.

Then he turned and saw an enormous glyph carved into the marble floor, and instinctively knew what this was. It was a seal of ancient runes, containing his Family Crest within. He didn't know what knowledge or bloodline ability he would gain from activating it, but he could feel tremulous tremors dancing across his body from the anticipation. Sitting down in its center, he closed his eyes. His hand, still bleeding from the sacrifice required by the door, outstretched in a downward facing fist. He felt the tiny rivulet of crimson liquid meander from his palm, in between the cracks of his fingers, and trail to the tip of his knuckle.

Then it fell to the ground, and the glyph on the floor began to glow brilliant red. The light enveloped Harry, filling up his vision so intensely that he could hear, feel, smell, and taste the color red. It saturated his body, twisting and warping about. His head tilted back of its own accord, and he began screaming. His back arced, his muscles flexed, and his hair began waving through the air. A shockwave erupted from Harry, knocking everything in the vicinity over.

He sat quietly for a moment before bringing a finger up to his nose and feeling blood escaping. The capillaries in his nose burst from the pressure his body just underwent, but it was more than worth it. He felt different than before, as if a veil over the world around him had been lifted. His thoughts were streamlined, like they were held in a crystalline lattice rather than an organic matrix. Suddenly everything clicked into place, and he understood everything that he needed to.

Intuitive Aptitude. That was what he inherited from his father, from the Potter line. It was trying to manifest earlier, but only in his subconscious mind, because he honestly was that powerful. It allowed him to instinctively understand why things worked, whether physical or conceptual. All he had to do was visualize the inner mechanisms of whatever he was scrutinizing, and he would automatically know. That's why, when he was younger, he was so good at solving the mysteries around the castle; his Intuitive Aptitude was forcing him to notice the patterns around him, even if he wasn't truly aware of them.

But now he was, and many things clicked into place for him. However introspection could wait. The gravity of the position he was placed in was starting to affect him, and he needed to prioritize. And first up came his familiar's errands, since they certainly seemed to be useful. Deciding that he was finished looking through the vault for anything useful, Harry took a few minutes to calm down before he mentally said, _"Alright, what should we do now?"_

Equinox said, _"Now, I think you should get a proper dueling instructor from Knockturn Alley..."_  
>_<p>

Fleur Delacour genuflected on the cold marble floor of her family's arcane workshop, in the center of a massive circular diagram. It possessed radial symmetry, with other shapes and symbols inscribed within its border, all made out of chaining symbols from an ancient language. The symbols were glowing with radiant crimson light streaked with evanescent gold, enveloping her nubile body in its haunting embrace. Her nude frame glowed in the supernatural light show, her skin shining with the glistening sweat of keeping the ritual going.

Standing proudly over her was her father, the man who raised her, lightly carving into her flesh with a white-hot metal baton, a stele. The searing pain of this ritual was almost too much for her to bare, but she knew that the rewards would be worth it. They were performing the initiation ceremony, awakening the latent powers hidden in her blood. The powers that came from her paternal ancestry.

All over her body, where her pleasant skin was once unblemished, there were scars. These scars were in the shapes of ancient runes, and they were glowing with otherworldly power. Her father was marking her with these symbols, and where he lightly but carefully ran the tip of the stele, her skin was scorched in the furious heat. Jean had explained to his daughter in private that the ritual would be torturous to her, due to her maternal ancestry. He knew that phantasmal beings went through more pain, yet he continued the ritual anyway.

This was not his idea. He wanted to teach her the skills necessary to survive in the Triwizard Tournament. The thought of branding her skin with the angelic runes of his people went far beyond that. He never wanted to harm his eldest daughter in such a way. Yet she insisted, claiming that it would be a slap to the face of their ancestors if they didn't go through with the entire process. Knowing that she was not one to be deterred from her path once it was decided, he acquiesced to her request.

And now, tears were running down his face unabashedly as he burned her. The device he was using was painful even for him, and he didn't even possess phantasmal blood in his veins. He had no idea how much pain she was in, but the blood dripping from her mouth where she bit her lip to keep from screaming out... It was unsettling how fiercely determined his daughters could be. They must have gotten that from their mother, though he also wasn't much of a slouch in that regard.

Agility, granting increased mental acuity and physical speed. Angelic Power, awakening her angelic bloodline ability. Courage, bequeathing unshakable bravery in combat. Dexteritas, allowing her to have enhanced dexterity. Equilibrium, giving her perfect balance. Fearlessness, removing the ability to feel fear. Fortitude, granting her insurmountable emotional durability. Fortis, bequeathing to her immense physical strength. Insight, giving her improved mental acuity. Mnemosyne, allowing her to develop a photographic memory. Nyx, granting her night vision. Soundless, improving guile and abilities in stealth. Voyance, imparting on her extrasensory perception.

The pain she had to endure while he imbibed these marks into her very being hurt him just as much. There was normally a waiting period between each rune being added, but his beautiful Fleur told him to continue; she would endure. And so he did. He continued to mar her perfect skin with the device, augmenting her formidable abilities with those of his people. He had planned on doing this after she graduated from Beauxbatons, but unforeseen events made him push the schedule forward.

Finally, he finished. Fleur, under a huge strain, smiled up at him from her prone position, and quickly lost consciousness. She would be in a haze of pain for the next few days, but luckily the time-turner would let her seemingly heal faster. And the powers she gained from her maternal ancestry, those of a veela, would keep her from scarring. He sighed as he looked down at her, before scooping her up into his arms and carrying her to their medical ward. Luckily, he had the foresight to call a healer from Idris to their manner.

After she recovered, he would teach her how to properly police the shadow world. Soon enough, she'd be slaying demons, killing feral vampires and werewolves, and entering contracts with faeries and warlocks. It was too late to keep her from his world, the dark underside of magical society, but he was more than willing to put up with that if it meant that she could survive the toils of the Triwizard Tournament. As he laid her in her bed, he ruffled her silver hair, and murmured, "Rest well, my little Nephilim... Rest well.**"**


	4. Act One: Networking

**Act One: Networking**

* * *

><p>Deciding that he was finished looking through the vault for anything useful, Harry took a few minutes to calm down before he mentally said, <em>"Alright, what should we do now?<em> There was a feeling of restlessness sifting through his body, and he knew that he wouldn't be able to sit still at all for a while. Was it originating from his odd brain, this random sentiment of energetic necessity dictating his actions? And if so, did that mean that he already knew on a subconscious level that there was much more to this day than the revelations he already faced?

The intelligent avian being shrouded in both shadows and fire seemed to have woken up some primal part of himself that he desperately wanted to free, but he'd never known existed until now. He was learning about the society of witches and wizards, far more than he ever had in the past. Whether it was because it was privelidged information only handed out to the few, or considered to be incredibly basic common knowledge, but nobody had ever actually sat down and talked to him about his rights and responsibilities as a noble. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

Equinox said, "_Now, I think you should get you a dueling instructor from Knockturn Alley-"_ Harry's eyes narrowed at the next suggested location that his familiar spouted off, wondering again for the umpteenth time whether he could even trust the thing that now resided somewhere near his gut. The bird's unusual knowledge about the upbringing and mindset of Voldemort of all people made him wary of it, while it still somehow managed to give him good advice. It seemed all knowing, yet held within it a nasty sense of humor that would definitely kick up in the proverbial nuts later on.

Harry cut the bird off with a tiny amount of his hidden suspicious thoughts coloring his voice ever so slightly, _"I've been to Knockturn Alley before, and I know that its filled with dark creatures and wizards. There's no way I'm going there, though I am curious about why you want me to go there. Should I not trust you any longer too?" _He shivered and remembered the disastrous first attempt at using the Floo, and the subsequent adventure involving the Malfoys and Hagrid saving him from certain doom. He didn't want to have to deal with old hags selling used human fingernails ever again, if he could help it.

_"... you_ need _a proper instructor, because sticking to Hogwarts curriculum could easily get you killed. You have way too many enemies to not start learning as soon as possible,_" reasoned the perfectly eloquent familiar. The bird seemed to know exactly what to say to gain the response from him that it wanted, which made him even more suspicious. But at the same time... Well, when the phoenix put it like that... _"I actually already had you send them a letter to introduce yourself. I heard about them through the grapevine, if you will. They're powerful, and they're not a supporter of Voldemort, Dumbledore, the Ministry, or anyone else. They're their own entity, though part of a noble house..."_

Harry nodded in defeat and, after a jet of eldritch fire beyond mortal comprehension, found himself standing in a small alley just out of sight of anybody that might've been suspicious of his dynamic entry. With a resigned sigh, he set off for the mysterious person in the seedier part of the shopping district, hoping that none of the hags, vagabonds, thieves, drug dealers, pimps, or whores were going to give him any trouble. Everything seemed so dark around here, as if it were already night time, yet it was still early in the morning.

That was Britain's rainy weather for you, but it still gave him the impression that he wasn't welcome in Knockturn Alley. The place was crawling with people of the wrong sort, and twice he had to take a long route when people of questionable repute began approaching him. No he was not in the mood for Moon Powder. No, he didn't want to buy illegal fireworks that were apparently sentient. No, he didn't want to have the company of a cheap prostitute, though he did stop and stare for a few moments at the scantily clad woman before continuing on his way.

His innocence seemed to be attracting all the wrong sort of attention, and he couldn't think of any way to alleviate his youth or hygienic appearance, no matter how conspicuous it was in his current environment. He had a hood pulled over his head to hide his face from the crowd, for it wouldn't do if the Boy-Who-Lived was caught in a place with a reputation as bad as this, and it certainly helped some. However, it seemed to scream 'weakness' at the denizens of the alley, and they watched him move by like a pack of wolves staring at a sheep covered in barbecue sauce.

He was waiting for someone to physically grab him or something along those line, but luckily none did. "This is the place," came the ethereal voice of his phantasmal familiar, and he again wondered how it was that he came into the possession of something as obviously powerful as the dark phoenix. He was standing in front of a business, staring at the dumpy looking shop entitled, 'Belmont's Place', while feeling somewhat foolish. He tremulously entered the place and shyly looked around, wondering what he was getting himself into.

There were shelves all over the place filled with everything from books to broomsticks to wands to potions. There was a single woman standing behind the counter, and she was so beautiful that it took Harry's breath away. Her skin was as pale as the moon, though looked as soft as velvet. Her hair was as black as night, shifting in the air as if she were underwater, framing her angelic face. Her luminous crimson eyes watched him with a predatory gleam, and her tiny smile sent shivers down the teenage boy's spine. Her luscious lips, as red as a fallen rose, parted slightly to reveal slightly sharper than normal teeth. She was obviously a vampire, and a beautiful one at that.

She gave a coy grin, one that made him immediately want to ask her questions about the shop's wares, if only to get her to speak. "And what would a boy like you be doing in a place like this?" asked the woman. His self esteem rapidly plummeted, and a tiny metaphorical raincloud appeared over his head. Nothing pissed him off more than being called a child, especially after all the harrowing adventures he went through in a place as dangerous as Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After fighting a hellhound, the shade of a dark wizard, a Basilisk, and over a hundred dementors at once, Harry wasn't going to put up with this kind of inane drivel anymore.

But before he could even defend himself, the libidinous woman continued, "I know who you are. I actually just finished reading your letter. But that doesn't tell me what an up and coming student such as yourself is doing in a place like this. So, care to elaborate?" Her cold and calculating gaze bored into his mind, feeling like she was staring into his very soul, before she shook her head, "I suppose it isn't a concern of mine what young people do in their spare time anymore, but I am curious about you." Her voice was as smooth as honey, yet as light as bells.

Harry couldn't help himself and walked up to her, his annoyance dwindling the closer to the phantasmal being he got. "I was told by a friend that there was somebody here who could teach me the skills I needed to survive in dangerous situations. You are this person, right?" he said softly. He wouldn't be surprised if his familiar, whose comedic style was already quite apparent to the boy, thought it would be a hilarious endeavor for him to learn self defense from a dark creäture. It just seemed like the phoenix's style, from what little he had already learned of the creäture.

The irony of the situation, likely planned by Equinox because the raven was an absolute jerk, wasn't lost on Harry. But, he wasn't about to let the barrier of species come between him and survival. If he could get along amicably with goblins, how much more difficult would it be to keep vampires happy with him as well? Somehow, he felt as if even thinking something so optimistic was going to lead to his downfall. Fate was a spiteful and fickle mistress, and she tended to get great amusement out of the ridiculous situations that she could force the young wizard into.

The supernaturally alluring woman breathed in delicately through her nose, picking up Harry's scent. Her eyes widened in surprise and she said, "I am. I can tell that you have enormous potential, most of it barely beyond your grasp or sealed away deep inside you. Clearly you are no ordinary child. So tell me, who are you, kid?" However, from the way her voice sounded as she spoke, he knew that she was perfectly aware of his identity. Very few people belonging to the supernatural world in Britain didn't know of him, after all.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said blandly. He watched her carefully, wondering how she would react. She didn't, which pretty much told him that the gorgeous being before him suspected as much. Whether it was his iconic emerald eyes, shaggy black hair, or tiny frame, something had given him away. He idly wondered at what point she realized who he was, but decided in the end that it didn't matter. All that did, was that she was probably the person he was looking for, even if she hadn't answered his question yet.

"I suppose you could say that I am an accomplished fighter. I'd have to be, to live as long as I have. Tell me, what do you know of the Scholomance Institute of Magecraft?" her delightful voice requested, and gentle metaphorical fingers seemed to be stroking his very being, enticing him to tell her everything she wanted to know and more. Belatedly, he realized that he was standing right in front of the counter, leaning against it just to be closer to the striking creäture. She smelled of roses, though he'd never stopped to smell that particular flower and wondered how he knew what they smelled like.

Harry frowned and said, "I think it was briefly mentioned once in a history book that I had to read a few years ago... isn't it a thaumaturgical school in Transylvania that teaches the dark arts? I've heard that Satan himself is their teacher, but that's obviously not true. I mean, none of that stuff is true, is it?" His voice became noticeably unsure towards the end of that statement. It was a problem that he was having an unusually hard time grasping, whether biblical and mythological entities were all true, or only if a select few were historically accurate.

It was maddening.

The woman smiled devilishly, as if he knew that this would ruin the boy's world views, even as her tentative grasp over his being stopped caressing him. It felt like she was trying to strange him with presence alone, albeit in a tender sort of way. "Let me tell you something: all of the polytheistic and monotheistic pantheons exist in some form or another," she said, her eyes boring into his own. Those words made Harry shiver, since it went along with what Equinox said about phantasmal creatures earlier and implied that the woman actually was taught spellcraft by _Satan_.

Harry gulped rather loudly, and the woman's answering grin made her fangs more apparent. He hoped that his path would never cross the likes of that fallen angel, for he already had enough hellish beings in his life to worry about. Yet again, a shiver ran down his spine as a foreboding chill permeated his body, as if Fate was already weaving webs that, through seemingly random and coincidental circumstances, would make his newly acquired worst nightmare come true at some point in the future. Gods, he hated these premonitions he got.

The woman's harsh smile gave way to a smirk, and she happily changed the subject, "But we're getting a bit off topic, are we not? I mentioned the Scholomance Institute of Magecraft because I am a graduate. While you were correct, simply about the dark arts being prevalently taught there, my old school does have other classes at its core, you know. We learned all that you do at Hogwarts, but to a much higher level. We also learned about wandlore, though that is something I doubt I'd be able to teach you in a timely fashion..."

"So you're a dark wand making duelist champion?" asked Harry, his voice cracking in the oh-so-manly 'dulcet' tones of puberty. And now he was mildly embarrassed. He felt the strange urge to strangle himself, particularly right where his vocal chords were. '_Equinox, what have you gotten me mixed up with?_' He felt the bird just laugh at him. Harry sighed and said, "Well, I was hoping for a tutor of sorts since I'm constantly getting into the wrong sort of trouble, but now I'm not too sure..."

The woman scrutinized him and said, "I'd be willing to make a new wand for you for about five hundred galleons if you want, though I seriously doubt you'd want me as a tutor; I've been called a harsh taskmistress on multiple occasions, and I don't deal with failure in any form. I suppose it could always be arranged if I find you truly worthy, oh Boy-Who-Lived, but my services aren't exactly cheap." Her eyes of molten magma seemed to swirl maliciously as she scrutinized the young man in front of her, wondering what he was thinking about so heavily that his typically sharp eyes were unfocused.

It was as if he were having an internal monologue, one that was quite emotionally taxing. Curious indeed. She reached out a pale, ice-cold hand and brushed her chilled fingers against Harry's face, brushing lightly against the stubble that was beginning to grow on his untamed face. That brought him out of his funk, and he seemed flustered at the unwarranted contact briefly, before he became quite agitated. "Five hundred galleons?" shrieked Harry, apparently having only heard the first part of her response, "Ollivander's Wandshop sells wands for only eleven!"

"Ollivander's Wandshop has subsidized and regulated building materials, not to mention government policy lowering the price of wands for first year Hogwarts students. If you weren't going to Britain's première school, buying your first ever wand, or wanted a wand with some power behind it, then you'd be paying a lot more at that place. The discriminatory practices of the British Ministry against those of the lower caste have made it easier for nobles to get started in practicing spellcraft, and nearly impossible for average muggleborn to as well," finished the vampire.

"What do you mean? I haven't noticed any discrimination, except against some of the muggleborn students by Slytherins..." Harry's question tapered off as the undead lady scrutinized him even further, her crimson eyes reminiscent of freshly spilled blood glistening as if she were staring at particularly delicious looking prey. At this point, Harry awkwardly realized that this was quite literally the case, in this instance, and he was suddenly very observant of the almost total lack of distance between himself and her.

She leaned forward, her rosy scent enveloping Harry, and making him feel almost giddy. Her lips were so close that he felt her breath exhaling, her breath smelling surprisingly of freshly picked alpine strawberries, before she stopped and smirked at him. Her tongue poked out briefly, mocking him, before she began, "You're too innocent for your own good, kid. How do you think there are so many mystical adults in Britain while there are only about three hundred students in Hogwarts at once?"

Harry frowned. Now that she mentioned it, the amount of people he had contact with notwithstanding, the supernatural world did have a lot more members than could be logistically viable if Hogwarts was the only educational institution available to them. Hell, during the summer before his third year, after the unfortunate incident in which he blew up his Aunt Marge, he spent quite a few days sitting at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor as he watched the masses of people crowding the narrow streets of Diagon Alley.

Now that she knew that she had his attention, if only because he hadn't given it much thought before, the alluring vampire continued, "There are lesser schools, where most muggleborns and poor children go, or where halfbreeds and squibs go. Did you know that only those of noble birth, substantial wealth, or prodigious ability are allowed in Hogwarts? The only reason that elitist school has as many muggleborns as it does is because of a government quota forcing there to be at least five allowed in each year."

"Um..." said Harry, not entirely sure as to how to reply to that. "You said something about a wand?" asked Harry. This conversation was making him incredibly uncomfortable, to the point that he was perfectly willing to transition onto a lighter topic, even if he had no intentions of going through with such a costly transaction. His wand of holly and phoenix feather was practically an extension of his body at this point, and to replace it with something just because it was more powerful felt almost sacrilegious to Harry. In fact, even though he knew he was being irrational, he felt as if it would be the ultimate betrayal, even if his thaumaturgical instrument did have a direct, somewhat, connection to the homicidal psychopath that murdered his parents.

"Precisely! I'm a craftsman on a level you can't imagine. The longer I take making your wand, the higher quality it will be. You won't have to pay until I'm finished, so don't worry about that." The raven-haired beauty pulled out a box, seemingly from nowhere, and said, "You're going to be a tricky customer since you've got incredibly large mystical reserves." Yet again, Harry got the strangest sense of déjà vu from this, a feeling of quaint pseudo-nostalgia. It was a truly odd feeling, one that he wasn't sure if he liked or not.

"Great, another thing keeping me from having a sense of normalcy," said Harry sarcastically. It seemed that no matter what, there was always some quality, characteristic, or property attributed to him that was well beyond that of the norm. First it was fame, then wealth, then reflexes, then courage, and now apparently thaumaturgical aptitude. There were others, but he was having a hard time thinking of them with her warm breath puffing gently against his face. His brain, constantly grasping at random thoughts, capable of extrapolating seemingly useless information into clues needed to solve nearly any mystery, felt like it was shutting down in the presence of this lovely woman.

Smirking somewhat with thinly veiled amusement, likely because she was perfectly aware of the effect her close proximity was having on the young hormonally driven boy, the vampire disregarded his comment and continued instructing him, "Now, tell me which of these items calls out to you,"as she opened the box. He could sense a feeling of dormant power hidden within the contents of the thin box, and stared. They exuded an attractive force, and he heard the sound of drums pounding in his ears. Was that his heartbeat?

Harry weakly nodded and reached his hand forward, hearing how the dynamics and tempo of the proverbial drums changed as he extended his arm to the various objects contained within. He couldn't tell what most of these things even were, but that hardly mattered for his current task. He pointed at the three strings that he felt the greatest tug on his mana from, one of which he recognized as a phoenix feather.

"An interesting combination. I've heard of three ingredients being used in the core of a wand before, but never _those _three all together. A basilisk heartstring, a phoenix feather, and an alicorn hair. By the nine, this is going to cost you a pretty knut," she mused aloud. Turning her attention back to him, she added, "I suppose, given the affinities that you've shown, that you would be worthy of becoming my apprentice. Just know that I won't go easy on you..." As she trailed off, she was examining the core components of Harry's potential wand, paying him barely any attention.

_"What's an alicorn?"_ asked Harry. He had a feeling, maybe stemming from the fact that he knew both basilisks and phoenixes to be incredibly rare phantasmal creatures, that alicorns would be similarly elusive and powerful.

_"An alicorn is a phantasmal creäture of the divine classification, with the body of a unicorn and angelic wings. They haven't been seen for centuries, much like basilisks. It seems that you've come across someone with unusually good connections in the world of black market trading,"_ answered Equinox. Harry paused to consider that. If this woman was a dark creature, which she clearly was and seemed to have no qualms with galivanting about with that fact easily noticeable, and she had connections with the dark market... this was going against every principle that made up his character.

For some reason, he couldn't find it in himself to care. Maybe it was because she was giving him an ample view of her cleavage, or maybe it was because she was exceptionally attractive, but he felt like he could bend some of his own rules for her sake.

"Rather than using that feather, though-" began Harry as he called out to Equinox. The phoenix responded by flashing into the room in a burst of black fire, making the woman's red eyes widen in surprise. "-I'd like to use a feather from my familiar." A black phoenix was the subject of myths and legends, believed to be a hoax by most. But a black phoenix it was, and it responded to his calls. The vampire behind the counter wondered if maybe it was because the boy was a descendant of Gryffindor, and inherited the Phoenix Force. She would ask about it later, but right now he was too shocked to really do much of anything.

The woman licked her lips lasciviously, arousing Harry even further, and said, "Yes, I can use one of its feathers..." In answer, a single black piece of plumage fell off of the mighty bird and landed in her slender hands. "This already has potential to be truly powerful, but I think some empowerment rituals on the core components of this wand are still warranted. Hmm... Now to decide on the external structure..."

The undead wandmaker put away the box and muttered quietly under her breath, no doubt not thinking that Harry would be able to pick up, "But fresh ingredients would be the best. I've got no new basilisk heartstring, and I don't want to use mystically inferior specimens for a depreciated product. But I don't know where any recently killed basilisk would be..." It was as if the universe was aligning perfectly for this moment, because Harry actually did know where just such a specimen would be.

Harry, upon hearing the woman's mumbling, said, "Would one killed around a year ago be fresh enough?" Her eyes snapped to him, hungry in a way far different than how she looked at him earlier; now she was looking at him as if her were a tasty meal that could lead the wolf into the heart of sheep territory. Her smile became positively predatory as she scrutinized him, this time her gaze held some amount of respect.

"The last basilisk discovered was killed centuries ago. The single heartstring that I have is worth more than almost everything else in the shop combined. One killed last year would still be saturated with dark mana and its venom, making it just as fresh as the day it died. This would make it even more valuable, but there would also be the matter of scarcity. The meat, bones, hide, scales, venom glands, organs, skin, eyes... I get the feeling that you killed one a year ago, otherwise you wouldn't have mentioned something so specific. How large was it, and where was it?" she asked excitedly.

Harry rested a hand on his prickly chin, thinking back on the incident at the climax of his second year at Hogwarts, before finally saying, "Approximately sixty feet long. Its in the Chamber of Secrets under Hogwarts, and I only managed to kill it with the help of a sorting hat, which gave me the Sword of Gryffindor, and the help of the Headmaster's phoenix named Fawkes." While he wasn't particularly comfortable with giving that sort of information out to someone who was essentially a stranger, if only because he didn't want her to think him arrogant, he understood why she was so curious.

The woman looked at him. "You definitely have the Phoenix Force, otherwise you wouldn't be able to summon a phoenix to you, or wield _that_ blade. But how did you get into the Chamber of Secrets in the first place? I thought only a heir of Slytherin could access that place, which logically means a Parseltongue... How many powerful families are you the heir to, young man?" He noticed that the stare she was giving him was even more hungry than before, but he couldn't define what sort of hunger this was.

Then it clicked: he just revealed that he had two very rare bloodline abilities. To a creäture whose main source of nourishment and sustenance came from drinking the blood of others. The supernatural feeling of being lovingly embraced was back, only this time it was a bit stronger. It made him wonder, in one of the more dark parts of his mind, whether his blood would taste good to her. He was about to offer her his neck, when Equinox cut in, _"Tell me, did you know that a vampire's supernatural allure is capable of seducing anything sexually compatible with them? She'll respect you more if you can control these urges to please her..."_

Harry, snapping out of the compulsion to let the woman before him do whatever she wanted to him, shook his head for a brief moment. Then, he smiled and mysteriously said, "A few. So, would you like to help me recover its body and begin selling it?" He watched shock cover her face for the second time in so many minutes, feeling a distinct rush of satisfaction. For some reason, he didn't feel all that violated by her attempts at mind-controlling him with sex appeal, though that might just have been the lingering effects of her allure on his judgements.

The woman nodded and said, "Of course I would, for a fee. Fortunately, money shouldn't pose a problem to the heir of at least half of the Founders of Hogwarts." She noticed Harry wince at that statement, but continued on regardless, "... But I will try to get you the best possible results. The sooner you take me to the Basilisk, the sooner I can make you an incredibly powerful wand. Before we go, I'll need to let my employer know that I'm leaving." He couldn't fault her for the logic she displayed, and he inwardly wondered how he went from asking her to be his instructor to getting her a veritable treasure trove of basilisk parts.

"But of course," said Harry, hoping that he was making a good impression on his new tutor/crush. At the silent call he sent towards his familiar, who was still existing in the physical plane, Equinox disappeared in another burst of black flames, and Harry felt the warmth spreading through him again. It was odd, over the course of only a few hours, he was already attached enough to the phoenix that he felt uncomfortable when the bird's presence wasn't overlapping with his own. This sort of dependence on another entity made him feel odd, but he decided to discard those thoughts for the time being.

The vampire called out, "Simon! I'm going on a lunch break with my potential student!" Her sensuous voice somehow felt commanding at the same time, as if she was used to dictating everything to her boss, which Harry wouldn't be all too surprised about if true. She just had a domineering personality, well past the level that even Hermione was capable of brandishing at those around her. For some reason, he found it to be incredibly attractive. Maybe he had a thing for strong women? Harry and Equinox mentally shrugged at each other.

They heard a distant voice call out, "Alright Serana. Try not to lose control, okay?" So maybe Harry was wrong in presuming the gorgeous vampire was the owner. It didn't really matter at this point, though he did smile when he heard the comment about him being a potential student of hers.

Serana grumbled in annoyance at the slight, whatever it meant. Harry quickly grabbed him and phoenix-flashed them to the Chamber of Secrets. All the while, he thought about how he was going to use any excess money to help Fred and George get their joke shop off the ground, and maybe donate a bunch of top-tier brooms to the various Quidditch teams of Hogwarts. Maybe not Slytherin though.  
>_<p>

They reappeared in the dark, fluorescent green light of the Chamber of Secrets. Not two feet away from them was the basilisk, whose body was still perfectly preserved. "Told you," said Harry with mock immature smugness. Serana laughed and walked over to the giant snake, appearing to scrutinize it with something between scholarly delight and greed. Grinning, Harry said, "Hey, I'm gonna go looking around. The last time I was here, I was kind of distracted. And I haven't been down since, now that I think about it."

Serana laughed and said, "Alright, go exploring. I'm going to be assessing the net worth of this monstrosity in the meantime..." Grinning at how she trailed off upon realizing just how far into the distance the body coiled, Harry turned and began looking at all the walls.

Just for the fun of it, he began saying **_"_Open up!_"_** repeatedly, until a stone door that perfectly blended in with the walls opened, grinding noisily across the ground.

Within seconds, the wandmaker was beside him, staring intently at the now open doorway, before the raven-haired woman blurred into the room, leaving behind a very confused Harry. "_How did she move so fast just now, Equinox?" _he asked his hidden familiar. He felt amusement bubbling its way across their mental link and felt annoyed that the phoenix was withholding information for its own amusement.

_"I will say nothing_," replied the black avian. Harry growled under his breath and muttered, "Damn bird." Ever since the phantasmal creature entered his life, it had caused nothing but trouble. It also seemed to get some sick form of amusement from confusing the everliving daylights out of him, which was a characteristic that did not endear the shadowy phoenix to him. Not one bit.

Serana reappeared just as quickly as she left and said, "There's a nest of basilisk eggs in there." He was rather averse to allowing the deadly critters to live. Harry was about to suggest that they smash them all to bits, but her next words stopped his mouth before it could form its own. "They won't be able to survive for long without their mother, and they all appear to be males..." Noticing that their gender didn't change Harry's opinion, she continued, "... this means that they don't have that death-stare like the one you faced did."

"You mean only the females can kill with eye contact?" asked Harry incredulously. Serana nodded. That revelation made Harry feel somewhat terrified of the female portion of humanity even more for a brief moment, but he managed to shrug off the masculine fear by thinking about the situation logically.

He remembered watching a documentary once that female snakes tended to be more aggressive than their male counterparts, although he just assumed at the time that it was a peculiarity unique to that particular species. It seemed that basilisks had similar evolutionary motivations behind their abilities, though the driving force still eluded him somewhat.

Equinox, the eloquent wielder of rhetoric that he was, perfectly described Harry's thoughts on the matter when he muttered, "_Figures_."

Harry chuckled aloud, getting a weird look from Serana. He forgot, for a brief moment in which the world seemed so more simple due to comedic relief, that he was the only person capable of hearing the intangible entity sealed within his body. Thus, his off-the-wall reaction seemed out of the blue to his female companion. Deciding to change the subject, if only to save what little remained of his dignity after being embarrassed (yet again) by the actions of his familiar, he said, "Well, since they aren't as dangerous to look at, do you think they'd be good pets?"

_"Of course they will... idiot,"_ muttered Equinox in the background, but Harry just pretended his familiar's voice was white noise.

The attractive woman entered a thinking pose, resting a slender finger carelessly on her narrow chin, "Well maybe for you since you're a parselmouth. They'd be incredibly loyal, and able to actively camouflage their outer layer of scales. They can hide in plain sight and easily kill anything with their venom, or so the stories say." She pouted a bit at that, clearly put out with the fact that she, someone clearly not possessing the capability to control these reptilian monstrosities with parseltongue, would likely not be able to keep one as a pet.

A small smile wormed its way onto Harry's face, because she seemed quite adorable at the moment. Never mind the fact that she was a natural predator to his very species and, beyond even that, wanted to keep one of the most deadliest phantasmal creatures in the world as a pet. "That would explain how this sixty foot long snake was capable of sneaking up and attacking people second year," said the fourteen year old, staring warily at the Basilisk with a whole new level of healthy respect for its lethal abilities. He also kept one eye on his companion, but that stare was the result of hormones more than anything else.

"Oh no, only the males can hide themselves. The females kill with intimidation, the males kill with stealth," replied Serana matter-of-factly, a surreptitious smirk adorning her visage; she knew that he was looking at her. Harry face-palmed, at both her statement and his getting caught, though more the former than the latter, and nearly tripped over his shoelaces at the overall stupidity of people in the school above their heads. How the fuck could something so gigantic sneak through the school so easily? Sure it used pipes, but beyond that... Harry sighed and shook his head in defeat.

"That being said," began the vampiress, "-it's just as difficult to kill a male as a female, especially if you stop to consider that you can't really use your eyes when fighting either... But anyway, do you want to keep the eggs or not?" She was looking at Harry patiently, with something reminiscent of warmth present in her rosy eyes. He felt that feeling again, as if his heartstrings were being plucked by an expert puppeteer, or maybe his soul was being pointed in a certain direction by an outside force. It was starting to make him uncomfortable.

Nodding slowly, Harry queried, "And they're all males?" If one was capable of killing anything around it with nothing more than an unobstructed line of sight, he wouldn't allow it to live; he really didn't want to have to deal with the responsibility of handling an animal that could kill him or his friends as easily as breathing.

That was the sort of idiotic complacence that led to an early appointment with the Grim Reaper, if nothing else. Besides, it just made sense to eliminate the risk from the get-go, rather than trying to somehow shoulder it. That was one mistake that he didn't plan on making anytime soon. Or ever, for that matter.

Equinox's eerily similar voice to his own spoke up with sadistic glee, interjecting with its own take on the information, having picked up his line of reasoning even as it was being formulated, _"Then again, Scabbers could potentially have killed you and your merry band of misfits hundreds of times while sleeping in the same dorm room as you, yet the rodent never did. So, all things considered, maybe it would be safer not to just accept pets out of the blue in general..."_

There was a sense of smug superiority about the bird, and Harry wanted nothing more than to smack it upside the head with a baseball bat. At least the mental image was satisfying...

Serana frowned forlornly, obviously anticipating Harry's negative reaction, and corrected, "There's one female, but the rest are male." Trying to discern what the woman that was practically a stranger to him was thinking, Harry began contemplating what to do, unconsciously imitating her thinking pose. Her predatory smirk grew at that, but she otherwise kept her observation to herself. For the time being, anyway.

"And how many are there total?" questioned Harry, trying to think of some way to rationalizing what essentially came down to infanticide of an endangered phantasmal species. There wasn't really much more he could ask at this point, so trying to delay the inevitable any longer would be much more obvious. While it just seemed like the logical thing to do, he knew that he wouldn't be able to kill something that was still innocent. Sure, it had the potential to kill everyone in a room with the blink of its eye, literally, but it hadn't done so yet. If anything, it was still so young that he could potentially train it to not kill anyone around it...

"Three. You could always sell them on the black market, if you wanted. They would be worth quite a bit, you know," said Serana. She was subtly observing his body language, and her smirk softened into a genuine smile when she realized that money wasn't a major influence on him. If he had immediately gone with her idea, he would have lost what little esteem humans had in her eyes.

But he hadn't done that, and she realized that, even among those still enslaved by the toils of humanity, there were those that had an intrinsic nobility to them. The boy before her was one such person. However, power had the capacity to corrupt anyone away from the light. And, as a Child of the Night, she had a sworn duty to bathe those around her in darkness.

The opportunity to pervert a virgin was a rarity in this day and age, and she couldn't help but run her tongue over her lips in anticipation. When a wave of his pheromones hit her, released when he subconsciously read the signals she was sending, her smirk returned with full force. He wasn't ready for her yet, because no mortal was able to handle her, but when he was... She'd be waiting for that moment keenly.

Equinox snorted, "_Of course selling one of these bad boys on the black market may or may not come back to bite you in the ass, either figuratively or literally. So, you may want to keep these in your possession, if only to keep them out of the wrong hands if nothing else_."

In response, Harry gracefully snorted in derision. Raising a questioning eyebrow, the woman looked at him for an answer to her unasked question, 'why did you just do that' a question that even he could interpret on her face. She seemed to realize that she wouldn't be getting a satisfactory response from the utterly embarrassed teenager, so she let the snort go.

The vampiress continued unaware of the ebony firebird's antics, "Also, how do you plan on transporting the snake and eggs? It would likely take a lot of energy to transport something as large as that corpse," he said pointing at the dead basilisk, "let alone being discrete when you reappear." She was talking about the spontaneous explosion of jet black flames that erupted around the general vicinity of him whenever he phoenix-flashed, and Harry really didn't have an answer to that at the moment. His plan was to just do it that way regardless.

"Well, I have an idea, but before I use it, do you mind if I ask you a question?" said Harry. Equinox's lack of an answer on the matter only a few minutes ago made him feel strange, and he really wanted to know how the vampiress could move so fast as easily as she did. Was she using mana to reinforce her body, was she reducing air resistance around her when she moved, or was it something else entirely?

Serana shrugged noncommittally and said, "Not really, since it'd be counterproductive for a student not to ask questions of their instructor. But first, there was also a dusty book back there too. It looks to be indecipherable, but that could simply be written Parseltongue..."

As she said this, she daintily lifted up a book whose cover appeared to be written in normal English to Harry at first glance. But, after giving it a quick look, he could see that it was far too spindly and sinister to be written in his native language. Of course, different kinds of font could be used to get the same effect, but it really didn't feel like that was the case.

"_If its written, would it be called parselhand?" _asked the smartass bird. It was actually a relatively valid point, considering that written parseltongue didn't seem to have a name yet.

Maybe the fact that it was so rare, constrained to a single family of spellcraft users, coupled with the fact that said family was notorious for being deplorable to anyone not meeting their impossible standards, led to the absence of such a monumental discovery. Or maybe, it was because that family was so paranoid of outsiders discovering the secrets of their bloodline ability that all documented evidence of handwritten hisses was lost. It didn't truly matter, as the end result, that nobody really knew it could be written down in the first place, was the same no matter which explanation was chosen.

_"I'll call it that for now on," _Harry mentally projected to the bird as he rolled his eyes and picked up the book, entitled, _The Serpentine Language_. He read the table of contents and blanched. There were spells in the language, a lost alphabet of Ancient Runes, an alternative system of Arithmancy, and a quick note saying that learning the higher forms of Parseltongue could help control any manner of reptiles, even Wyrms.

Of course most of those functions wouldn't work without having the bloodline ability fully activated by the unlocking mechanism of the Slytherin family crest, but he could still use some of the tricks available to lower manifestations of the gift. Quickly hugging the book to his chest like it was a priceless artifact, which it was literally was to most anybody living in the supernatural world who knew of the legacy left behind by the various founders of Hogwarts, Harry said, "Now about that question..."

The beautiful woman sighed in mock defeat and said, "As long as it isn't too... _invasive_." The way she concluded her response, the slight growl permeating the final word of her sentence, made the hairs on the back of Harry's neck stiffen. It was easy to forget that the unbelievably alluring woman was actually a soul sucking monster from fairy tales and ancient myths. But, with that one word, flowing with the inherent power and grace of her species, she reminded him quite quickly of what exactly she was capable.

"Its not a personal question, or at least, I don't know if this will count as invasive or not from your perspective," began Harry smoothly, trying as hard as he possible could to not stumble over his hastily constructed words or cross the proverbial line when talking to her. "Are you a vampire?" he finally managed to ask, quickly realizing that he should have been a bit more specific and less of a rambling fool when he asked that question.

Deciding to just go with it for the moment, Harry didn't comment on his own horrible delivery or restate the question because it would make everything more awkward than it already was. And it was already unbearable.

Serana stared at him as if he were stupid, the exasperation he felt rolling off her in waves did nothing to alleviate Harry's sudden fear of angering her. Considering the stereotypical appearance of a vampire, she didn't really fit the bill. But those characteristics were still fairly ambiguous among the phantasmal humanoids, and his gut instinct told him that she was a vampire.

Harry blinked, and decided to try, "I realize that your kind are renowned for physical prowess, but I just didn't think vampires were supposed to be _that_ fast. I've heard that they're more geared toward brute strength than deft agility." His idle curiosity was getting the better of him, and the weird feeling of warmth in his chest wasn't helping matters.

Serana's red eyes seemed to glow at that. "What do they teach you in this backwater school?" The vivacious undead's hands wildly gesticulated upwards, towards the majority of Hogwarts, then he calmed down and said, "Alright, let me set this straight. I am a member of the Volikar family, who came to Britain back when it was still called Albion," she said with no small amount of boasting in her voice.

Damn she was old, but he could dwell on that later. For now, there were other items of curiosity vying for supremacy in his random mind. "Aren't the Volikar a noble family in the Upper Court of the Wizengamot?" asked Harry, remembering his short discussion with Equinox on the very same subject earlier that morning. It's strange how new things he was learning kept overlapping today... Again, that quaint sense of deja vu struck at his stomach.

"That we are. But that's not what I'm going to talk about. We were once a part of Transylvania's vampire society a very long time ago, easily on par with the House of Drakul. However, a group of Italian vampires, who shall remain nameless, began conquering all of their competition throughout Europe. With the mysterious disappearance of Dracula, the most powerful vampire in all of Europe, there was nothing keeping the Italians out of our territory," said Serana. Her voice had a far away quality, as if she were relieving past events.

Maybe this impromptu interview was stirring up long forgotten memories that she was trying desperately to forget.

Still, something was bothering Harry, and his intrigue knew no bounds. Again, it felt like his subconscious was grasping at random facts to bring something important to light for his conscious self. These moments of intra-persona cohesion made him feel incredibly odd, as if he were watching events from outside his body, with no control of what he would do or say next. "So they came to Britain?" he prompted curiously.

She nodded demurely, "We fled the onslaught of a powerful vampire army, and came to Great Britain where the most influential wizards of the age were congregating nearly a thousand years ago. We sought out protection from the Italians and gained it, bringing swarms of refugees with us from all across mainland Europe." He paused dramatically before continuing, "Now, do you know the difference between common vampires and vampire lords?"

"Not really. You kind of just went on a random tangent about how a specific coven pretty much dethroned your family-" began Harry, but his response, though not intended to be insulting, came off that way. In the end, his mouth clamped shut like that of a crocodile, and he worried for his bodily safety while in this woman's presence of the umpteenth time. While she never overtly did anything to intimidate him, there were undercurrents of lethality billowing out from her like noxious poisonous gas, and he yet again questioned what his fiery familiar had gotten him mixed up in.

"There are several different kinds of vampires. The most powerful are called True Ancestors, and they have strictly vampiric ancestry. At some point in the past, the will of the planet suffered with the indiscriminate corruption that humans caused to the environment. Because it lacked the means to defend itself from humans back then, Gaia sent a plea to the other celestial bodies for help, because only a planet is able to correctly judge another of its kind," said Serana.

"Wait a minute. Are you saying that our planet is alive?" asked Harry incredulously. Then, the rest of her statement caught up to him. "And that the rest of the planets are sentient as well?" he added, his voice practically shrieking.

She nodded and said, "Well, sentient is a bit much, but... Are you unfamiliar with the Counter Force?" He shook his head and she sighed. "I suppose this is a teachable moment then. Alright, listen up: the Counter Force consists of two components: Gaia, which was the planet's intrinsic instincts, and Alaya, the collective unconscious of humanity. As people began to develop independent of nature, they became independent of the Gaian system. With this divergence, Alaya was no longer aligned with Gaia and conflict resulted."

He'd heard some pretty crazy shit over the years, and this was certainly up there, but now that she actually pointed it out to him... It actually did make sense, if he took a step back and viewed the entire world from an outside perspective. How exactly he was capable of doing that, he didn't know or want to find out, but alas it was and so it shall be.

Coughing slightly to recapture his attention, the vampire continued, "They are the Counter Forces, passive spirals of energy that responded to threats of planetary destruction or human extinction. Constantly active and steering the World away from potential danger, they have immense power at their disposal. Although only the appropriate amount is used to address a situation; the amount of power unleashed can be as small as nudging individuals into place through 'coincidences', or as great as sinking an entire continent. Usually, the Counter Forces act indirectly, but, although Gaia and Alaya are intangible forces of will, each does enlist physical agents capable of dealing with events too threatening to address with indirect intervention."

"And I suppose," began Harry, "-that this is where vampires come in?"

Happily, she nodded and continued where she trailed off, "The one who answered Gaia's plea was Brunestud of the Crimson Moon. He offered to allow the creation of a self-defense mechanism for the planet based on him in exchange of being allowed to live on Earth. From this pact the True Ancestors were born as a Counter Force, for the purpose of returning the planet to its original state, before the corruption caused by humans."

That name, Brunestud of the Crimson Moon, was awfully familiar to Harry, and he felt like there was an inescapable itch in the back of his head. A bead of sweat rolled down his face, yet still he soldiered on and listened to her explain without interrupting and asking another question. "Despite their origins as anti-humans entities, Alaya does not see the True Ancestors as targets. That's because the True Ancestors are extensions of the world, mediators of nature, before being enemies of humanity," she said succinctly.

"If they aren't enemies of humanity, which certainly seems to be the case given the stories surrounding vampires and what you just told me, then why do you need to drink blood to survive?" asked Harry. It was a very crucial inquiry to be made, especially if he was actually thinking of forming an alliance with the inhuman beauty currently lecturing him. She hesitated for a brief moment, and the pause made him very suspicious of her.

She sighed and said, "While being born from nature just as any natural spirits, the True Ancestors are fundamentally copies of the Crimson Moon with minds and bodies modeled after humans, the latter done so under the principle that it would be best for them to resemble those who they are supposed to rule over. Because Crimson Moon was their basis, the True Ancestors not only turned to be detached from nature's desire of protection from humans but also inherited a terrible flaw from the original: vampiric impulses."

He nodded at her, and she continued softly, "A purely psychological impulse that pushes them to suck the blood of others. The True Ancestors must use their own powers to keep the impulses in check. That is why, even though they have the capacity to manipulate nature at will, they never fight at full capacity as most of their power is already being used to restrain themselves."

The emerald luminescence of the dark subterranean complex bathed their pale forms, and Harry was briefly captivated by her glittering crimson eyes. Tapping a finger on her chin, she continued thoughtfully, "However, because there is no end to the vampiric impulses, they do not disappear and instead accumulate with time. Eventually, those impulses will become too powerful to be restrained and threatens to take over. The only choice left in this case is for the True Ancestors to fall into a deep, eternal sleep. This can be said to be the limit of life of those without a definite lifespan..."

Her words were hauntingly beautiful, as if she found such a peaceful end to undeath to be almost romantic. She was watching him closely, seeing how he was reacting to information on her species that was far more than most wizards ever learned. He spoke up quietly, "It sounds hard, living a life of restraining your impulses. Were there ever any that decided to succumb to them?" Maybe it was the location, or the subject of their conversation, or the person he was talking to, but it seemed respectful to speak softly at the moment.

She nodded and replied, "Fallen True Ancestors succumbed to their blood thirst and became a threat both to humans and the Ancestors themselves occasionally. They were known as Dark Lords. As they no longer needed to suppress their thirst, they could employ their powers to their full extent and therefore vastly overwhelm their still restrained kin. They're all dead now, killed by the very last True Ancestor born to the world, but their legacy runs deep..."

"And that legacy... does it have anything to do with lesser vampires that most witches and wizards are more familiar with?" asked Harry.

Serana smiled, somehow seeming both demure and vicious, before answering, "You're correct. We call them Dead Apostles. The original members of this kind of vampire were created to act as counter-measures in the case of a True Ancestor being overwhelmed by his or her thirst for blood. In exchange for losing their free will and becoming a tool to relieve the vampiric impulses of the True Ancestors, these individuals were granted powers and longevity similar to their masters."

_"Losing their free will? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope,"_ mentally projected Harry, hoping his familiar would take the hint and get him the hell out of there.

"However, what they received was still a flawed form of immortality and it was soon discovered that they needed to suck the blood of others to survive; they suffered from vampiric impulses too. But these vampires have the physical need to suck the blood of others in order to maintain their own bodies," she said, her fangs gleaming prominently in the green light.

She took a step toward him, and he took a step backward, "The result of repeatedly sucking the blood of humans was the emergence of a sense of superiority in the heart of the servants of the True Ancestors. Such a thing eventually gave birth to a feeling of rebellion towards their masters, which then lead the servants to find ways of strengthening their mental control and escaping from the domain of the True Ancestors. After the rebellion, these blood-sucking humans became the monstrous vampires that you know of."

Harry nervously gulped, and stepped into a puddle of water as he retreated another pace. "And I'm guessing that you're one such individual?" asked Harry, his voice dangerously close to cracking under the strain that she was putting him through. His back ran into a pillar, and she was suddenly standing right before him. Waves of her supernatural allure were pressing into him, as if she were projecting emotions of lust and desperation into him. Her eyes were glowing, like a swirling vortex of blood, as she closed the distance between them. Her soft lips brushed gently against his cheek, before she angled towards his neck.

She stopped at the last moment, her hot breath against his neck, before muttering, "I'm a different breed altogether. My family, and everyone we've turned, are unique in this world. The Volikar coven gained power through a sacrificial ritual to a primordial daedra from another plane of existence, that of Oblivion. We are different from the Dead Apostles and True Ancestors, but no less powerful in our own right. We hail from another realm of Mundus completely, having been forced to travel to this world by the machinations of my mother."

Her soft voice entranced Harry and he tenderly ran his index finger down her cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, before continuing, "We suffer from an unquenchable thirst for blood too, as well as an unjustifiable sex drive. We have an inborn aversion to sunlight and weakness to hallowed things. However, we have incredible abilities unique to us." Her unique brand of vampirism didn't sound too appealing to Harry, but to each their own, he supposed.

Harry tilted his head, and she huskily continued, "We have perfect night vision, the ability to drain the life force of our victims, the power to reanimate corpses easily, the ability to calm and attract anyone around us that we choose, and the power to embrace the shadows..." Somehow knowing that he wasn't too impressed, she continued, "We can also detect all creatures around us, transform into an intangible mist, possess supernatural reflexes, and can summon sentient gargoyles to act as soldiers."

Serana continued, "We have augmented physical attributes to a level that you can't even comprehend. Strength, sight, endurance, hearing, flexibility, touch, balance, taste, reflexes, smell... Sexual appetite..." And now he really understood what the hungry look in her eyes meant, and he gulped slightly.

Harry squeaked. The vampiress stared at him and said, "Would you like the gift of becoming a vampire lord?" She watched as the boy considered all the possibilities, and didn't like how much thought the boy was putting into it. Either he wanted to ascend from humanity, or he didn't. Really, how hard of a choice could it possibly be?

_"How would this affect my standing in the Wizengamot, or as the scion of two noble houses?"_ asked Harry, completely out of left field, as if speaking on the request of a much more politically savvy individual. _"Would I still be able to go to Hogwarts? Also, I've heard that there are quite a few discriminatory laws being passed against vampires lately, which wouldn't really help my situation at all. Before I can make a decision that large, I'll need to learn all the facts. For instance, how would wizarding law apply to me if I was no longer human? Things like that need to be questioned before I can do anything at the moment,"_ said Harry.

_"You would still be allowed to go to Hogwarts since you're already enrolled there, plus the fact that your tuition is already paid for will make it difficult for them to kick you out, and your status as a nobleman and heir to at least one of the school's founders would make it nearly impossible to do so. Wizarding law wouldn't have much of a hold over you, unless you broke the International Statute of Secrecy, but that's because us vampires ratified that treaty. You would be considered a permanent resident of Britain, but never a citizen. However, this is basically irrelevant since you're a noble and would still have the privileges of your station because of your birthright,"_ replied his familiar.

_"What exactly does that mean?"_ he asked in confusion. How could he be a noble but not a citizen? The two terms weren't mutually exclusive or anything of the sort, in fact he always assumed that nobility was entirely dependent on the citizenry, yet the bird just acted as if the latter didn't matter whatsoever. Thinking about all of this was making his head hurt, but it was a good sort of pain, like a pressure tempering his brain for future verbal jousting. He couldn't tell if he liked it or not.

_"As a noble, you're granted the right to own real estate, vote, serve public office, and things of that nature. In fact being a noble demands you do all of those things, while exempting you from most taxes and granting you other special rights, such as the automatic enrollment at Hogwarts which we discussed before coming to this dump. A permanent resident, however, usually can't do any of those things, or they have a much more difficult time getting them. Basically, your nobility trumps everything, and you won't be losing any rights by becoming a vampire,"_ said the shadowy avian.

Thinking fiercely for a few seconds, Harry slowly asked, _"So I'd essentially be emancipated?"_ Because a quick route to gaining adulthood would really help him out, especially with all the things Dumbledore was allowed to do as both the steward of his family and legal guardian. If he wasn't oppressed at Gringotts and in the Wizengamot, then he could start getting political supporters and sponsors to help prevent Voldemort taking over the Ministry. That would be a big blow against the Dark Lord's plans.

Seeming to read his mind, the seductive vampire murmured, "In the eyes of vampire law, there is no distinction between being an adult or child since we're all immortal. You would be treated no different than anybody else, which is essentially the same as wizards treat those considered to be an adult by their law. I don't think that wizarding law will let you get emancipated without the permission of your legal guardian, but in vampire law it is redundant since you're already a fully fledged vampire."

Harry felt the need to inquire, "Wouldn't I get treated harshly by the British Ministry though, being an underage permanent resident? My godfather was framed for murder, and nobody seemed to even lift a finger to help him, even the one man who I know beyond a shadow of a doubt had the information. I don't want to be sent to Azkaban for something I didn't do, simply because of what I am or who I might get in the way of." He noticed that her lips thinned at the illicit mention of Sirius, likely connecting the dots quite easily with her untold experience and intellectual capabilities.

"Well, your status as a noble would likely save you from anything so drastic," said Serana, visibly upset at the news that somebody was treated so horribly by the British supernatural government. It seemed that people persecuted for something they didn't do resonated with her on some deep level, as if she were the target of such an inquisition at some point in the past. Considering the fact that she was supposedly older than, and resided in Europe during, the Spanish Inquisition by at least a few centuries, he had a feeling that she came across fanatical opposition at least occasionally.

"My godfather was the head to a Most Ancient and Noble House, the House of Black," said Harry dryly, further cementing her understanding that Sirius Black was innocent. "He was falsely accused and is still being hunted down due to that..." he trailed off forlornly, a depressed expression on his face seldom seen by others. This was a man that offered to give him a place to stay, other than the retched home of the Dursley family, and he would always have a special place in Harry's heart because of it.

_"Speaking of that, we should really find a way to exonerate him at some point soon. I actually have a rudimentary plan to grant him is freedom, too," _mentioned Equinox, trying to liven the mood by making painfully obvious statements. The shadowy bird of fire had a unique sense of comedic delivery, one that made itself known in awkward situations. Those moments were typically wrought by the phantasmal beast itself, but that was hardly relevant for the bird.

_"Gee, really?" _snapped Harry sarcastically, knowing exactly what the avian being was up to. It was a delicate issue with him, and he'd already spent way too much time in the familiar's presence to know that it was trying to make light of his godfather's situation via a poorly executed joke. His comment had the desired effect of shutting the intangible creature up for at least the moment, and a thrill of satisfaction ran through the young wizard.

Serana's cold red eyes hardened at that and she replied silkily, "You could gain a form of diplomatic immunity if you joined the vampire ministry and became an ambassador to the wizards, which we have had several people do in the past. This would make any negative action against you tantamount to a declaration of war by wizarding Britain against the entire vampire nation. And let me tell you, we would certainly win."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Harry in awe of the sheer determination that the woman exuded as she spoke. She was surprisingly vivacious, for an undead entity. "I've seen just what wizards can do, and I'm pretty sure we outnumber you guys ten to one, according to this book we had to read a long time ago in History of Magic class," he continued smoothly, her narrowed eyes giving him the impression that she didn't like being questioned.

To answer her self-appointed apprentice's question, Serana took a step away from him, before she adroitly turned and gouged her hand through the column that they were still leaning against, leaving a deep trench in the wake of her deft clawing. A pile of dust gathered on the ground at her feet, and Harry gulped realizing that it was powder from the thoroughly devastated column.

"Wizarding Britain was brought to its knees by a single terrorist and his ramshackle organization over the course of a decade. Sure you guys outnumber us ten to one globally, but if you don't remember, our attributes are six times stronger than yours in our common vampires, and thirty six times greater in our vampire lords," she said smugly, a triumphant smirk overtaking her delicate lips.

"I still don't see how that really affects things. We have a numerical advantage of over a thousand percent more people to use than you, while you have an ability factor of about six hundred percent on average and the occasional thirty six thousand. It should still even out pretty closely, with the edge going to the wizards..." argued Harry, though he still seemed somewhat perturbed by her earlier display of extreme physical prowess.

Sighing, she added, "I highly doubt all of the wizards in the entire world would jump to the aid of Britain, who's still using imperialistic policies to oppress the majority of the supernatural societies within the human controlled territory on the planet, since it is split up into hundreds of tiny nations all vying for control. The unified vampire nation includes all vampires across the globe, a tenth of the wizarding world's population. Think about it like this: there are currently about six billion human beings on the planet, with a thousandth of that being wizardkind. By that logic, there are roughly six million mystical humans worldwide, and sixty thousand vampires."

Harry nodded to show that he was following along as Serana continued, "Muggle Britain's population is around fifty million, give or take a few. That means that there are approximately fifty thousand wizards. Do you truly think they could win a war against sixty thousand vampires, all of whom are in a unified collective? Keep in mind that their physique goes beyond human limits by a factor of six on average, which would be roughly equivalent to three hundred and sixty thousand enemy wizards? Do you see how the scales tend to shift in our favor once the facts start coming in? I can't see Britain lasting more than a week against the might of the unified vampire nation..."

"... So about that diplomatic immunity..." said a weary Harry, wondering why they didn't try to take over the entire world as they were.

_"Nice transition," _said Equinox, the fiery bird's use of verbal irony for comedic relief not amusing the boy it resided within.

_"Your sarcastic comments are neither wanted or needed," _an irate Harry mentally projected_._

Smiling in amusement at how easy is was to get her point across, Serana continued their conversation from the point just prior to his arbitrary yet entertaining tangent about war, "It tends to eliminate most discrimination against us from those pesky humans, while simultaneously allowing us to literally get away with murder. The worst thing they could do to you would be deporting you from the country, but you'd likely be welcomed with open arms anywhere else in the world due to your celebrity status."

"I... still don't know if becoming a vampire is the right choice for me. I mean, it would easily make my future battles against Voldemort a lot easier, but there are many more factors that I need to take into account before I make a decision like that," enthused the human. "How did you know that Voldemort wasn't dead, anyway?" asked Harry in confusion, noticing her lack of reaction.

If that was regular news, wouldn't the public be going hysterical by now? He knew for a fact that most people truly believed the Dark Lord to be deceased, the snake bastard's own servants included in that group. Unless the true heir of Slytherin was covertly doing things...

"He has dispatched envoys to various dark creatures asking for aid in recovering his body. None have taken him seriously, since he can only really scare humans into following his words. The vampire nation has largely ignored him, and we plan to do so in the future as well. He wouldn't dare attack us at our castles and fortresses."

Serana Volikar nodded her head and they began forcing the corpse of the basilisk, as well as all of it's shed skins, into the shrunken mystical trunk that Harry pulled out of his moke skin pouch, after he whispered their passwords to them in the tongue of the reptiles.


	5. Act One: Relaxation

**Act One: Relaxation**

* * *

><p>Harry sat down on his bed, stretching. The day had been quite trying, and he needed a nap. Between meeting a black phoenix that apparently imprinted on him, finding out that his rights were being withheld from him by an authority figure of whom he'd truly trusted, and befriending a vampire lady and exploring the Chamber of Secrets with her... it was an exhausting day, and it was only lunch time.<p>

Smiling sleepily, he was just on the precipice of nodding off to sleep. Unfortunately, at that precise moment, Uncle Vernon decided to yell up at him, "Boy, where the Hell have you been all day?! You've got chores that need to be done before you can go to sleep or eat dinner!" Dinner. Food. The thought forcibly reminded Harry that he hadn't actually eaten anything all day other than the traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, toast, and orange juice. That was over twelve hours ago, and now the Dursley clan was actually awake so he wouldn't be able to sneak anything into his stomach.

Harry sighed dejectedly and stood up, but Equinox mentally projected, _"If it's a matter of needing food or sleep, you could always get a house elf to take care of you. I specifically remember a certain one that would gladly help you out if you were to hole up in your bedroom until the Weasleys are an available escape."_ The thought brought Harry up short, and he tilted his head to the side. Would it be morally sound to ask for the help of one that he himself saved from a life of indefinite indentured servitude?

_"I suppose I could give it a shot. How would I go about getting Dobby here?"_ asked Harry. Now that he was back at the house, it really didn't seem like a viable option to send the house elf a letter with Hedwig, at least not while the Dursley clan was actually awake. He could only imagine the expressions on their faces when he described that he was sending an owl to a magical creature and inviting it into their house so that he wouldn't have to do chores for food and sleep. He imagined Vernon's face would turn a lovely shade of purple, complete with a pulsating vein running through his forehead.

_"Just call out his name,"_ answered Equinox. The simplicity of the answer made Harry almost blush. He'd been thinking that it would require some ultra difficult ritual to summon Dobby or something equally outlandish, and now hung his head in slight shame for a brief moment.

_"Dobby?"_

_"Out loud, you idiot,"_ berated the insubstantial phoenix. Equinox was beginning to worry if Harry was going through a slight rebound effect. For a short while he seemed to be growing intellectually before his very eyes. But now, it seemed like Harry's new-found intellect was being withdrawn quite suddenly, with interest. Perhaps these fluctuations would calm down in the future, but it was a source of both annoyance and amusement to the bird.

_"I knew that. I was just testing to see if you knew that... Well, here goes nothing,"_ replied Harry. "Dobby?" he called out quietly.

With a very audible crack, most likely a sonic boom that Harry wasn't going to even begin to try and rationalize with his mediocre knowledge of the laws of physics, a short humanoid appeared in the center of Harry's bedroom. "Mr. Harry Potter sir has called upon Dobby! Dobby is very pleased!" said the excited house elf, hopping up and down. He noticed that the deranged creature was wearing mismatching clothes of all sorts, but didn't want to waste time commenting on Dobby's odd sense of fashion.

"What was that noise, boy?" came Vernon's distant voice echoing through the entire house. Harry froze, wondering what sort of answer would best sate the curiousity of his horrible uncle before the man felt the need to come upstairs and investigate himself. His eyes roamed over the room, looking desperately for some object to act as inspiration for a lie. It would have to be believable too, otherwise he would be punished for freakishness. Although, punishments tended to be deprivation of food, and that was potentially solved with Dobby here anyway.

"Nothing Uncle!" he shouted down confidently. Yeah, that would totally be enough to keep that big fat ugly stupid smelly jerk from wanting to check it out himself. "Give me one moment and I'll be right down!" he added quickly, so as to keep the man off balance long enough to have a quick chat with his newest potential magical disaster. "Dobby, can you provide me with food and clean this house for me?"

The elf looked like it was just about to explode from sheer happiness. "Yes Mister Harry Potter Sir, of course Dobby can. Dobby is a good elf, and good elves help their masters!" Again, the little house elf seemed way too happy for Harry's liking. After all, it just admitted that it still saw the world from the paradigm of master and servant, rather than equals.

"Master?" Harry repeated dubiously. "Dobby, I'm not your master," he stated imperiously. But his resolve on the issue quickly began to waver when he was confronted with a frowny face and sad floppy ears. "Fine, I'll be your master. Do I have to do anything to cement this deal?" he grumbled. Honestly, he felt as if he were being strong-armed by his familiar and his _apparent_ servant. He felt like he knew what the owners of puppies or kittens went through when trying to set up boundaries for the adorable animals.

"Boy, it's time for you to do your chores! I want you to dust, vacuum, and mop the whole house, take all the trash out, do everyone's laundry, mow the lawn, pull weeds, trim our hedges, wash our cars, and repaint the parts of the fence that need touching up! Until then, you won't get any dinner!" screamed up Vernon, before he began stomping up the stairs. Groaning, Harry looked pleadingly at Dobby.

Dobby smiled and said, "You is already my master. You always was, Mister Harry Potter Sir." And then Harry got an idea. An _awful_ idea. It was a wonderful, _awful_ idea. An enormous grin erupted onto his face, one so large that it would put the Cheshire Cat and the Grinch into disgrace. Perhaps it was the somewhat new revelation that his father was really into creating mischief, or maybe the Twins were having a much more potent influence over him than he was aware of, but something was driving him to be... rambunctious.

Harry, looking over his shoulder, back out the open door to his bedroom, screamed at the top of his lungs, "I won't be doing any of those things, and by the way: magic, magic, magic!" It was an incredibly ballsy move, but it was also immensely satisfying to throw their weird irrational fear of the unusual back in their faces. They absolutely hated the it was the fact that he now realized that he was essentially immune to any consequences for his actions with his new acquisition of a personal house elf, but he felt like stirring up a proverbial beehive before making a beeline away.

The stomping up the stairs stopped, before they picked up with thunderous abandon. Vernon sounded like he was about to have a stroke, as he screamed back up at the wayward ward, "Freak, what the Hell did you just say to me?" It was almost as if he were using curse words loud enough for the neighbors to hear. But he wasn't going to take their crap any longer.

And just like that, Harry broke. Manic hysteria gripped the edges of his mind, and he began to laugh uproariously at the enormous man waddling towards him. Their predictability, their monotony, their stupidity, and their bigotry were finally crashing into him. And he utterly rejected them. He finally realized that their opinions had a negligible impact on his life, at least from that point forward. They were like flies trying to attack a shark, in the middle of the ocean: completely, unequivocally, and irrevocably redundant.

Harry ran out of his room into the hallway so that everybody in the house could hear him, "I'm not a freak. I can bend the laws of physics on a whim! I could kill one of you, reanimate the corpse, and make it kill the rest of you. But I haven't, and I won't. Do you know why? Because I am a merciful god to those that are inferior to me. But my patience has just about taken its course. Do you all understand? I am a beautiful peacock; you've gotta let me fly!"

"... PEACOCKS DON'T FLY, YOU FREAK!" screamed up Petunia, apparently deciding that the safest detail of his spiel to attack would be the one not involving the merciless slaughter of herself, her husband, and her son. But Harry was perfectly aware of what she was trying to do, to steer the conversation clear of any more violent courses, and he would not take that kind of manipulation sitting down lightly.

"NOT WITH THAT ATTITUDE, THEY DON'T!" replied Harry. His profound proclamation was met with eery silence for a heartbeat or two, before everyone in the house started yelling. Grinning, Harry mimed to Dobby that he wanted all of the windows in the house opened up as stealthily and quickly as possible, so that the hatred that his guardians were spewing at him would project into the neighborhood. He knew from experience that the copy-and-paste style neighborhood had excellent acoustics for creating echoes if the sound originated from Harry's bedroom window; the filth spewing out of their mouths would be amplified before reverberating throughout the entire neighborhood.

_"You should mention to them how Petunia actually wrote to Dumbledore asking for a place at Hogwarts,"_ said Equinox. And with that single sentence, Harry suddenly understood more about his aunt than he ever had before. An odd combination of vindictive fury and hysterical glee filled the young wizard at the revelation that his conservative and obsessed-with-normalcy aunt Petunia was really just a jealous bitch.

Harry started howling with laughter, and he briefly wondered if his sanity was cracking under the strain of being the Boy-Who-Lived. Perhaps it was only a temporary form of insanity induced by that realization, but it didn't matter because it was in place. "And to top it all off, Aunt Petunia wrote a letter to the Headmaster of my school when she was a little girl and _begged_ to be included with the supposed _freaks_! That just makes you a _wannabe freak_!" he yelled back angrily. He heard Vernon splutter in indignation, confusion, denial, and humiliation.

"Is that true Petunia?" asked the overly large man in disbelief. There was an audible sob of shame, and Harry chuckled evilly before slamming the bedroom door hard enough for its vibrations to be felt throughout the entire house. His hysteria disappeared entirely once he no longer had to put on an act, and he felled a happy warmth in the pit of his soul at the thought of his legal guardians duking it out. He felt no pity for the abusive and negligent people that he'd been stuck with for the past thirteen years, nor did he even care that he pulled the rug out right from underneath their feet.

He hoped they got a divorce, were forcibly evicted, sent to prison, and forced to choke to death on their own feces. That was better than they deserved, in his very anger oriented opinion, and he realized that he even had the potential to bring all of that to fruition. While it was tempting, he decided to refrain from doing so, if only for the moment. Harry wasn't typically a sadistic fuck, but he had almost a decade and a half of grievances to bear against the Dursley family, and they had a special place in his heart.

Ignoring the possible ramifications of his actions for the time being, Harry turned to a shaking Dobby and gave a winning smile. He saw neighbors poking their pesky little noses out windows and doors, and over fences or gates to listen to the show that he was throwing them. The yelling, crying, and cursing that filled the house also filled the neighborhood, probably ruining their reputation as mild-mannered forever. "Well that was fun," Harry said brazenly to both himself and Dobby. "Sorry you had to see that, buddy. I just really needed to let off some steam... anyways, how about that food, huh?"

Dobby nodded and disappeared in another pop, which set off even further shouting throughout the house, but he didn't respond to any of it. Sighing, he laid down on his bed happily. He began making a mental list of all the ways he could screw with his family. Sabotaging their utilities and furniture seemed like a good route to go, considering how much they craved material possessions, but it would have to be small things over time. He could get Dudley expelled from Smeltings and Vernon fired from Grunnings, and as for Petunia... He could always pretend to care for her in case Voldemort wanted to use somebody against him for leverage.

He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply through his nose, content to finally get a nice and quiet nap-

_"You have some letters, Harry,"_ said Equinox. Harry groaned, sat up, and approached his desk where his correspondence with Molly Weasley, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin sat awaiting his perusal. There was also a package from Serana Volikar sitting at his desk, and the thought of the beautiful seductress made a shiver run down his spine. Still, he pointedly yawned again, a sort of silent 'fuck you' to his nosy familiar, before he ripped open the envelope to Mrs. Weasley's letter.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry Potter,<em>

_We would be honored to have you stay with us as soon as possible. We can pick you up in a few weeks, and you can stay with us until you need to go to school. Dumbledore at first refused to let you leave until your birthday, but we convinced him to shorten your stay with them. I wanted to take you away from those horrible abusive muggles immediately, but that didn't go over very well with Dumbledore. Apparently you need to spend time with your 'actual family' no matter how much you all hate each other.  
><em>

_Everyone here says hello to you. And Bill and Charlie can't wait to meet you too._

_Lots of Love,_

_Molly Weasley._

* * *

><p>Harry grinned at her letter, hoping that somehow doing this would convey his happiness at having her annoyed on his behalf with Dumbledore to her. He doubted that it worked. That crazy old man had a lot of explaining to do when they met each other again, and he'd be damned if the man tried to hide from behind bureaucracy or authority.<p>

And if the Headmaster's explanations weren't satisfactory, meaning really damned good, then he would be saying goodbye to Britain altogether and moving to wherever Sirius disappeared to. The man seemed to be living the life, if the tropical bird that delivered his mail was anything to go by. Sighing, Harry opened up the letter from Ron, so that he could reply to both Weasleys in one fell swoop.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_I hear you're coming over here earlier than we planned. I suppose the muggles are treating you awful, huh? Welp, here's an update on the family: _

_Ginny is still crazy about you, so watch your toes around her. I think she mentioned something about making a move soon too, though she just mumbled it so I'm not too sure. She's a crazy one, that one. Her friend Loony Lovegood is too, but in a completely different way. That girl keeps ending up over at our house for some reason. I think it's got something to do with her father's printing press spontaneously exploding or something like that. She mentioned that a dumpy horned blorsack horn was the reason her house became a crater, but I just don't even know, mate.  
><em>

_Fred and George have started an owl order joke shop, sending off prank and gag merchandise to a surprisingly lot of people. I never knew just how brilliant those two were until they had me test out some of their inventions. Some of that stuff could be really useful on our adventures too. Mum found out about their secret business and went ballistic. Something along the lines of: 'you two need to have respectable jobs' but somehow managing to last a few hours straight. Nobody got much sleep that night. Anyway, I'm using one of their enchanted quills, and it makes what you're writing sound smarter and more polite, but the side effects are that you might come off as a bit pretentious. Isn't that a hoot?_

_Percy hasn't really left his room other than for dinner time. But whenever he does show up, he keeps talking about the thickness of cauldron bottoms. I just don't understand him at all anymore. Bill and Charlie are back home for the foreseeable future. Something about the Ministry employing them both. They won't tell any of us though. Dad knows, Percy knows, Mum knows, and both of them know. Something big is happening at Hogwarts this year though. That's all I know of so far._

_And Hermione's on vacation in France. They apparently left as soon as she got back. Crazy muggles and their traveling, eh?_

_Sincerely,  
>Ron<em>

* * *

><p>Harry just smiled at his friend's letter. It pretty much caught the essence of the redhead perfectly, even if the enchanted quill changed his syntactic style. Perhaps, if he used it long enough, he would get better at writing in general. McGonagall took off enough points for spelling and grammar mistakes that the Twins could sell those quills by the boatload and still not be able to keep up with the demand. Perhaps he should invest his meager money with them. If the worth of the basilisk corpse was as much as Serana said though, he might not be so poor and dependent on his family's money as he once was.<p>

He happily jotted down a quick note:

* * *

><p><em>Dear Weasleys,<em>

_That's great, I can't wait to be over there. Thanks for the heads up, Ron._  
><em>I look forward to your great hospitality, Mrs. Weasley.<em>

_Tell everyone that I said hello,  
><em>_Harry Potter_

* * *

><p>It was nice and concise, just right for his tastes. Finally he turned his attention over to Hermione's letter, the one that he felt a greater urge to read for some reason. Perhaps it had to do with the baseless suppositions he made about her life at home in Chapter 2, but Harry was really starting to feel like he needed to learn more about her personal life outside of Hogwarts. Beyond the fact that she liked books and learning, and had a strange pseudo-fetish for following the rules, he didn't know much about her.<p>

**(If, at those words, you got an image of Emma Watson writhing around on top of a desk stacked with books about litigation, then you're a pervert. That is all.)**

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_Just to let you and Ron know beforehand, I'm going to be in France for a little bit. It's a family vacation. We haven't left yet, but we'll probably be there by the time you read this letter. I just wanted to tell you before you sent Hedwig off on a journey that she wasn't prepared for without some good rest beforehand. Anyway, it'd be faster to text me, so... here's my number: (***)-867-5309. My dad got that number for me as a joke because I really liked the song back in the day; now I find it infuriating because he keeps playing it for me and calling it my song._

_Oh well, I hope you have a nice summer break too. If your guardians can't be civil with you, let me know. Daddy has connections with a lot of lawyers and a district attorney or two. I suppose that's what you get when you're a high-end dentist. I suppose, buy a phone and text me?_

_Love,  
>Hermione<em>

* * *

><p>Her short letter was just too cute for him. He could easily see a much younger Hermione singing her heart off to that song in a little sundress or something along those lines. Her letter did remind him though that he needed to go out and buy a cell phone. Sure it wouldn't work at Hogwarts or Diagon Alley or the Ministry, but he could probably use it pretty much anywhere else without any major issues. Nodding, he made a quick mental note to go to the nearest shopping center and buy a mobile.<p>

The sound of his uncle shouting and his aunt wailing was still echoing throughout the house, and the neighborhood to boot due to Harry's open window. Harry didn't feel an ounce of sympathy for the family that ruined his childhood. He may have put a strain on their marriage, but he didn't plan on seeing them ever again so it didn't really matter. Besides, if he kept that information to himself, he'd be lying by omission.

"_And lying is wrong_," intoned his familiar. Chuckling, Harry forwent writing a letter to Hermione since he'd be getting a phone soon anyway, he quickly turned to Remus Lupin's letter, wondering what the werewolf's response would be.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_I would look into whether a werewolf could adopt human minors or not, but I already know that it isn't allowed. You see, after the events of the night in which you became the Boy-Who-Lived, and your parents were murdered, and Peter betrayed us, and Sirius was wrongly incarcerated... I checked up on that to see whether I could raise you, but it is against Ministry regulations to allow a dangerous downworlder like myself to be unsupervised in the presence of a magical minor, especially a celebrity like yourself. I couldn't even visit you, and for that I'm deeply sorry, but I'll make it up to you one day... somehow._

_ I might not be able to visit you without a magical guardian present, but I can have correspondence with you, which is nice. __So tell me, how are things going for you? Have you gotten a girlfriend yet? How's life with your muggle family treating you? Get back to me whenever it's convenient for you though, Harry. I don't want you dropping everything just to reply to my letter slightly faster than you normally would. I could also regale you with tales from my days in school, when I hung out with your father and godfather.  
><em>

_Sincerely,  
>Lupin.<em>

* * *

><p>Again, the question of who possessed guardianship over Harry was plaguing his mind. He couldn't meet up with Lupin without a magical guardian present, or else the man would get into some serious trouble with the Ministry. He didn't know how bad his punishment would be, but he reckoned that it would be pretty severe considering that most wizards look down on werewolves as subhuman entities. Combine that with the hero worship that was constantly being shone to himself, and he was pretty sure that they'd euthanize Lupin like he were a common dog for even looking at him outside of Dumbledore's sphere of influence.<p>

Speaking of which, how had the man managed to get permission for the school to even hire a werewolf in the first place, especially with a known dark wizard on the loose and specifically after Harry's blood? That wasn't the actual situation, true, but that's what everybody thought was the truth. Shouldn't background checks have been a bit more comprehensive than normal if that were the case? Or did the Board of Governors actually have no say in staffing decisions? What power did they even wield anyway? Thinking like this made Harry get headaches, so he tried to avoid it as much as possible.

Sighing, he finally turned his attention to the package from Serana Volikar, wondering what she could possibly be sending him so soon after meeting him. True, she was now his mentor of sorts in the art of dueling and defense, but he expected there to be at least some sort of waiting period between their first meeting and any homework that she might assign him. Hating his life and familiar for providing him with more work than he felt like doing, he ripped open the thick envelope to reveal two books and a quick note.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Student Harry,<em>

_I, Serana Volikar, do hereby formally acknowledge you as my pupil in the arts of magical combat. I have informed my father, Lord Harkon Volikar, of our arrangement and have been granted permission to provide you with a few books from our ancient and otherworldly library at a time. For now, I've gotten one book on the art of basic spellcraft, one on theories of magic, and another on the study of vampires. You seemed interested, so I thought I'd give you a bit more information. All are incredibly advanced compared to what you're used to, so it might take you a while to muddle through them on your own. Remember: practice makes perfect. _

_My father wants to meet you, to test whether you are worthy of allying yourself to our House. He'll offer you vampirism, which you can feel free to decline. The date for your challenge is in one week exactly. Also, I'm working on creating your new wand as we speak, and I can already tell you that it's immensely powerful. Come stop by sometime if you have any more questions._

_Sincerely,  
>Serana Volikar<em>

* * *

><p>Taking a quick look at both books, he could tell that they were both expansive and incredibly old. The leather on their bindings was faded and worn, and the pages were yellow with age. And they did cover exactly what she said they did. He placed <em>Battle Magicks: Journeyman <em>and _Vampirism: Curse or Blessing_ on top of _The Serpentine Language_ to form a small makeshift tower of knowledge. He then pressed them into his Grimoire, watching in fascination as it absorbed the three books.

He was building himself quite the horde of knowledge, and he hoped that it would be enough to take on Voldemort the next time they crossed paths.

He wrote a quick thank you note to Serana, yawned, and was about to make his way to the bed for hopefully the last time that evening, when Equinox spoke up a final time, _"While you're working on letters, I think you should expand your horizons some. Think about it, beyond Hermione and Ron, who at Hogwarts can you claim to be your friend? Everyone else is just an acquaintance of yours at best, or outright enemy at worst. Why not cultivate new social circles? It will help in the long term, Harry."_

Harry had to physically restrain a groan from fleeing his throat, before he just sighed and muttered, _"Didn't we already go through this?"_ His heart was already sinking at the thought of even more work being lugged upon his shoulders.

_"Well, networking in general is important. I had you send letters to several older people, but now that you have more time, focus on people your age. As a foundation, you should choose people relatively close to you at first. Namely students. My recommendations are Luna Lovegood, and Cho Chang of Ravenclaw, Susan Bones and Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff, and Daphne Greengrass of Slytherin from among the student body. Outside of the school, I have a few other suggestions as well. Beyond Serana Volikar, you want Horace Slughorn. That man has more connections than even Albus Dumbledore, and he knows more about potioneering than Severus Snape,"_ said Equinox. _"Word to the wise though, he will try to collect you into his network."_

_"I think I can live with that,"_ said Harry. If all it took to increase his base of power was being the temporary pet of a man that had greater political acumen than the man that was essentially a trifecta of powerful public offices, while not using it to gain power of his own simply because he was happy with his current life, then Harry didn't see much of an issue with that.

_"That's what they all say,"_ replied the phoenix. Harry got a very bad feeling about the man upon hearing those words.  
>_<p>

Albus Dumbledore was now considerably less stressed than he was only days ago. "Harry's at the Dursley home again, and soon he'll be at the burrow," he said to himself. For a while he was worried about the boy's autonomous behavior, but it seemed like it was just a phase. While it might have seemed odd for anybody outside of those in-the-know to discover him keeping such tabs on a single student, no matter how famous or powerful, he knew that it was a definite need.

The boy was the subject of prophesy, an integral shatter-point in the fabric of reality that could alter the routes of fate. But beyond that, the boy was also the orphaned son of two of the Headmaster's most talented friends in recent memory. Thinking about James and Lily was enough to make his stomach clench in sadness and anger. They were the two most vivacious and unpredictable people that he knew, and they were cut down by a sadistic sociopath that was on a quest for eternal life.

The thought of the Dark Lord reminded him of what was at stake. Sirius Black escaped from Azkaban, Peter Pettigrew returned from the dead, Remis Lupin transformed on campus in the present of children, Severus Snape was becoming increasingly detestable, Lucius Malfoy and Viper Industries were making more aggressive moves, and there were rumors that the Volikar vampire coven was considering inducting someone into their family. Then Harry decided to go on his little adventure the very first day he returns to his house on Privet Drive.

And on top of all those domestic issues was the colossal undertaking of the reinstatement of the Triwizard Tournament. It would be a great boon to Britain to both participate in, and host the historic event, but he was beginning to wonder if the future alliances and trade agreements would be worth the tremendous stress it was putting him under already. The International Confederation of Wizards was relatively benign in the matter, seeming to be perfectly amenable to sitting back and watching the spectacle. But the Mages Association was all over his case, exclaiming that this was a perfect opportunity to reenact the Holy Grail War.

That was the sort of ritual that you never wanted to have any children near, ever. But they had a powerful sphere of influence in Europe, and mentalities towards research and experimentation in regards to furthering the bounds of magic that could be the doom of everyone on the planet. Hell, Atlas Academy, a single contingent of the Mages Association, had enough artifacts of apocalyptic magnitude stored away under its jurisdiction alone that nobody dared to outright attack their headquarters in Egypt.

With all of this happening, he decided to reinstate the Order of the Phoenix, but redistribute the labor so that he had more free time to work on keeping the Mages Association's dogs from sniffing to close to Hogwarts, or more specifically, Harry. If they became aware of all the bloodline abilities, ancestral sorceries, and estates that the boy was a heir to, he would be assimilated immediately. Conversely, if they realized that he was the subject of prophesy, he could easily imagine them manipulating the outcome to suit their benefits at the expense of the rest of the world.

The Order would wage another covert war on the Death Eaters, within the Ministry and Gringotts, and contend with the new face of their organization: Viper Industries. Between the business genius of Theodore Nott, the noble genealogy of Daniel Greengrass, and the political acumen of Lucius Malfoy, their brainchild was sweeping through the wizarding world. The reputations of Nott and Malfoy were intimidating, given their _supposed_ dark histories, but the Most Ancient and Revered House of Greengrass lent some credence to their business ventures, if only to the unwary.

He sighed and got to work, thinking about the members of the Order. The Weasleys were surefire supporters, and would always breed like rabbits since a high rate of fertility and low rate of infant mortality was their bloodline ability; they could form entire armies over the course of a few centuries if they weren't constrained with poverty. Beyond the redheaded family though, the staff in Hogwarts and a few members of the Old Crowd were the only people that he knew of that would certainly join his cause in the current political landscape.

He needed more contacts in the Ministry of Magic, Upper Court of the Wizengammot, the Mage's Association, the Holy Church, and the Gringotts Bank. A few people in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Department of Mysteries, and Department of Magical Transportation would be very helpful. Kingsley Shackelbolt and his protege Nymphadora Tonks would be incredibly beneficial to his cause; one being a full fledged magus and the other a metamorphmagus. Tonks would be almost perfect in espionage missions...

As the leader of the International Confederation of Wizards, he was well aware of the face that the Mage's Association was hostile towards him. The two organizations were something like rivals. While the Confederation had global power and influence, the Association's strength was concentrated in Europe and made diplomacy difficult.

The Confederation was a delegation of representatives from various sovereign nations that use diplomacy to come to understandings with one another. This can It's a collection of independent actors that work together towards common goals affecting embargoes and trades, taxes and tariffs, wars and armistices, humanitarian aid efforts, and foreign policies in general. Formed in the wake of World War Two, it was the magical societies' equivalent to the United Nations of the World, and includes demi-human governments as well. The representatives of each member nation wield enormous political power globally, and can reshape the world with words alone.

The Mage's Association was an international, self-preservative and self-defense organization formed by practitioners of magic, a collaboration of several different magical institutions for the purpose of controlling, concealing, and developing their craft. It is said to transcend nationality and genre of magecraft, but that is in name only. The precursors of the Confederation by thousands of years, the Association was more of an independent research body, fanatical in their devotion to furthering magic by any means necessary. The Mage's Association was actually responsible for the International Statute of Secrecy; they were the ones who decided to hide from the rest of the world back in the Middle Ages, due to both persecution by mundane humans and the deterioration of their mysteries.

And then to top that off, there were rumors that the Most Ancient and Noble House of Volikar, the public front for the Red Vampire Court, was becoming more active. Lord Harkon Volikar, the Red King, had a small empire throughout Central and South America. His forces were stirring up trouble, and an international incident involving the powerful vampire coven and the local drug kingpin might break the news any time soon.

Again, he sighed as he redirected his attention to the papers before him. The Triwizard Tournament was not just a way to cultivate international alliances; it was also a ploy on his part to test the dispositions of the other centers of wizarding power in Europe. He could possibly ask for neutrality, or even an alliance in the coming war with Voldemort. Plus he could test Harry's abilities in the face of insurmountable odds and possible isolation. This would be his first year actually studying the child directly as opposed to simply asking for reports from the staff, ghosts, house elves, suits of armor, portraits, and even Peeves...

He would think about that later. Now he needed to decide how to impress his foreign neighbors. More after school clubs, more available classes and electives, intramural and intercollegiate competition, the implementation of a new security measure, and perhaps a more cosmopolitan selection of foods for the Great Hall were all in order. Hopefully, the Ministry's latest interest in the school would wane, but he had a feeling that Minister Fudge would keep at him for a long time.

There were also moves by outside schools to try getting in on the action. The Salem Institute of Witchcraft in the United States and the Mahoutokoro Academy of Magecraft in Japan were both throwing their weight around within the Confederation. He would be perfectly happy to accept them into the tournament, but he knew that everything was already precarious as it was. And the Association was firmly against bringing parties from outside Europe into a tournament that was held exclusively by and for Europeans for over a millennia.

His alarm clock sounded and he realized that he was late for his appointment with the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Swiftly, he threw a pinch of blue powder into his fireplace, turning the flames green, before stepping through and shouting his destination.

After a few dizzying moments, he arrived at the place he wanted to be. Amelia Bones looked over at him blankly before nodding at a chair in front of her enormous desk. And then she sat quietly, waiting patiently as he dusted the soot off of his robes onto her shag rug. When he finally sat down, she proceeded to ask, "So, is there a reason for your visit today other than catching up on good times?"

Smiling benignly, the old man replied, "There is, actually. I would like to set up a personal guard detail around Harry Potter, what with Sirius Black still being on the loose and out for his blood. I'd be willing to hire any Hit Wizard you have, though I think this might require a pair of Aurors considering who's targeting the boy. If you accept, I'd gladly owe you a favor." Of course, Dumbledore knew that Sirius was innocent but that wasn't public knowledge yet, and that was a subject he would broach with her only after he had a bit more evidence to support his claims.

Madam Bones looked at him with squinted eyes, trying to discern what the old man really wanted. Rarely was a request from Dumbledore so straight forward, and even rarer was him asking without any obvious wordplay or doublespeak being incorporated to mislead her. "Alright," she said, since this was a legitimate reason for security, but also because refusing to gain a favor from Dumbledore down the line was plain stupid. "Do you have any Aurors in mind for this assignment?" she asked with a slight tilt to her head.

"I'd prefer Auror Kingsley and Auror Tonks if that would be possible," said the Chief Warlock. "Do you think they could be discreet about protecting him, maybe even not letting him know that they're watching?" he asked. Now this, she could easily tell was a test. Though exactly what he was hoping to glean from the results of this exchange, she couldn't say. The man was so indecipherable that she'd given up even trying long ago.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, and said, "It would be better for them to be out in the open. Aurors would be a healthy deterrent to anybody trying to harm the boy in any way. The rest of their team can be hidden, but there needs to be some visible presence of our protection. Plus, I think forming emotional investments in their charges is a great practice; it increases their protective instincts. Also, you made it seem as if they'd be spying on the boy..."

Dumbledore coughed, internalizing the fact that she didn't jump on board with his request, and said, "Well, its your call. You'll find him at the Burrow, the Weasley family's residence, in a few weeks time. He is currently at his home, which is so classified and protected that he doesn't need a guard there. And I can personally escort him there; I've been meaning to have a little chat with him anyway." She nodded her understanding and he left, his head disappearing in a burst of green fire.

She tapped her hand a few times on her desk, lost in a flurry of thoughts. Sighing, she muttered, "I have a terrible feeling about this..."  
>_<p>

Sprawled out on his bed, Harry was looking over his new books with a thirsty look on his face. The book _Battle Magicks: Journeyman _was very comprehensive. It mentioned how the three verbal components of spell deployment were pronunciation, enunciation, and intonation which he never learned at Hogwarts. They apparently helped with the spellcasting process by aiding the brain in coding the human body's internal mystical energy so that it can rewrite external mystical energy in the surrounding area for a temporary amount of time, thus making actualizing mystical mysteries more efficient and expedient.

Beyond that, it talked about the manual components of spell deployment being the position and motion. The position of the palm, fingers, and knuckles on a wand directly affected the flow of energy from inside to outside the human body, since the correct stance allows for less to be lost in translation or transcription. A precise polyhedrical motion path, in combination with the wand's velocity, has been shown to be directly proportional to the strength and finesse of the resulting spell.

There was a small cascade of black embers, before Equinox materialized in front of him and levitated just out of arm's reach _"Did you know that magic is sentient? That's how it can sort of following your will, but that only applies to extremely overcharged spells. And that's how you've been casting spells for years. It's going to be a difficult habit to break, but I think you can really do it,"_ said Equinox. Harry nodded thoughtfully, and continued to read for a few minutes.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to Harry. _"So how can we use magic if its sentient energy? How could we control something that can apparently bend reality to its every whim? This just all seems so unlikely,"_ asked Harry. He took a bite of the fourth ham and cheese sandwich that Dobby dutifully brought him, and couldn't help but wonder why he was so hungry lately. He noticed that, ever since that morning when Equinox appeared and bonded with him, he'd been feeling better, as if a great weight that he never knew about was being lifted off his shoulders.

_"Magic is a basic driving force behind many of the mechanisms that make life possible in the first place. However, humans are unique in that they can manipulate theirs,"_ said Equinox. _"And it's because your bodies exist in the terrestrial plane, your minds in the astral, and souls in the celestial. __You're only consciously aware of the terrestrial plane due to the constraints of your biology, though in time you will be able to access them all," _the firebird somewhat answered in a very roundabout manner.

_"How would somebody go about finding these other fields?"_ said Harry. It was almost impossible to continue reading during such an in-depth lecture, so he simply sat the book down for a moment.

Continuing, the pseudo-phoenix explained, _"It takes a lot of studying and meditating to be able to reach either the astral or celestial planes, but it is possible." _He paused long enough to let that sink in before adding the useful anecdote, _"This is actually what distinguishes wizards from mages and sorcerers; wizards can only use the terrestrial, magi have adapted to the astral, and sorcerers have evolved onto the celestial. That's where the differences in power come from."_

_"Do you think I could get to that point one day?"_ asked Harry. That question again ailed him. It started off while he was reading about a battle royale that had taken place between a Dark Lord Zeref, a Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg, and Nicholas Flamel over four centuries ago. Yet now it was slowly starting to bud in his mind that he could, theoretically, reach that level if he tried hard enough.

Equinox and continued the lecture with this reply, _"I think you have the potential. You just need a way to experience the other planes, sort of like magesight. If __perception is the foundation for experiencing reality, then it stands to reason that you can peel back even more layers of subterfuge that surround you. _

_"Is that why the Knight Bus can do whatever the hell it wants without consequences, or how the Leaky Cauldron is basically nonexistent to muggles?"_ asked Harry. He was always wondering why certain things were so obvious to him, but completely hidden from the rest of the world.

_"Yes. Muggles have magic, just not enough to be able to perceive anything 'out of the ordinary' if you will,"_ said the shadowy creature. _"They see phantasmal creatures as runaway helicopters or tanks, and people using magic as shooting guns at each other. It is how the magical aspect of the world has hidden so easily from the vast majority, despite the advent of the internet and invention smart phones. We call it... the Mist, and it's connected vaguely to the Counter Forces."_

_"And why exactly is that?"_ asked Harry. This was much more than he ever bargained for, especially considering he was just curious. Unfortunately for his schedule, but fortunate for his curiosity (since he was learning more in a few minutes than in several years of the Hogwarts curriculum), phoenix gave very detailed explanations.

_"The magical core resides in the celestial field, gathering magical energy abundant in the world,"_ the noble phoenix smiled. _"All humans have magical cores, but the ability to use magic is entirely determined by how much magic flows through the body. And this is what separates magic-users from mundanes,"_ explained the familiar.

_"Where is the magical energy stored, if you don't mind me asking?"_ asked Harry.

_"Magic circuits,"_ answered the phoenix. _"They reside in the magic-user's soul, but a physical expression of them stretches itself throughout the body in a fashion similar to the nervous system. Their normal functions are to act as paths that convert Life Force into prana, but humans with enough of it learned how to control it and use it to perform spellcraft."_

_"Prana?" _

_"It's composed of mana, the 'life-force' of the planet which can be found in great quantities in the atmosphere, is produced slowly by the world itself. It is the primary source of energy for nature spirits such as Elves, Fae, and True Ancestors. But prana is also made of od, the energy found in living organisms that is replenished by the magic circuits,"_ explained the shadowy familiar.

_"What's the difference between the two?"_ wondered Harry.

_"Their abundance. Mana is so plentiful that it's called the Greater Source, and od is so much smaller in amount that it's called the Lesser Source. Strictly speaking, mana and od are energy in it's raw state, while prana is the name given to the energy once it is converted by the magic circuits of the magic network. Mana can be taken in accordingly with the capacities of the magic circuits, but the actual conversion process will take time,"_ said the fiery bird.

And now Harry understood a lot more of the book he was reading. The current passage he was reading was talking about elemental manipulation. It stated that prana itself does not have any elemental attribute. However, once imbedded into an object that does have said attribute like lacrima (or is under the influence of particular nature spirits) it will attune itself to the elements in question until the moment that is released. He vaguely recalled that the invention of lacrima was a collaborative effort between Nicholas Flamel and Van Hoenheim, though he couldn't remember exactly what they did.

_"Ya know, you might wanna start off with something a little simpler for reading material. Why did you even choose something so late in the book?"_ wondered the raven-phoenix. _"Perhaps you should read up on spell-chaining, spell-bending, spell-warping, and spell-layering first. From there, you can work on nonverbal or even wandless spell-casting. Then, only after you've mastered those, should you begin researching physical, elemental, and conceptual manipulation."_

_"Is it really so bad to read ahead?"_ asked Harry.

_"Yes. You could easily kill yourself or turn Little Whinging into a crater if you try something too big,"_ answered the bird seriously.

Harry gulped and returned to chapter one.  
>_<p>

Lucius Malfoy sat quietly in an armchair, facing a round table with two other men and their respective armchairs. "Archduke Greengrass, there is a matter that we need to discuss with you," said the silvery blond man, his voice its usual cool and steely tone. There was a glint in his eye, as if he were having serious doubts about whether he should bring up the subject he wanted to talk about or not.

The man nodded silently to him, so Nott picked up the train of the conversation, "As you have no doubt heard, there are rumors about our past. They're like ghost stories, or maybe even urban myths by this point. It doesn't really matter what the commoners think about us two. What does matter though, is their opinions of our progeny. We both have but one son each, one heir to continue our lines for us."

Greengrass closed his eyes before taking a puff off the Cuban cigar in his hand. With magic they had no need to worry about health risks or even inconvenient smells, so he smoked to his heart's content and still had the body of a thirty-five year-old in excellent condition, despite being almost double that age. He liked the feeling of the smoke tickling his lungs, and he liked the aura of mystique that surrounded him whenever he decided to partake in the extravagance. A bottle of powerful bourbon, distilled in Kentucky, sat at the table next to his crystal shot glass.

After another puff, the man replied, "I have heard such things. They say that you were both followers of that upstart, Voldemort." The Greengrass patriarch, along with the majority of those making up the neutral voting bloc, watched on the sidelines during the last war. He knew that the Dark Lord twisted the pureblood ideology for his own agenda, creating a covert army for espionage and guerrilla warfare. His tactical brilliance led to repeated victories against the Ministry and Order, his charisma allowed him to swell the ranksof his paramilitary organization, and his personal magical power and mystical abilities made him the trump card of his own army.

Daniel Greengrass sighed and said, "You're right, that is irrelevant. What you both want is quite obvious, especially with that note about your firstborn sons. You want a marriage contract with my daughters." The thought made Daniel smirk. Primogeniture was a concept of the mundane world, but their society ran on different rules. The elder families of the Wizengamot possessed something known as primacy, which gave them exclusive rights to inheritance; even though he only had daughters, their children would bear the name of Greengrass. But primacy would always belong with Daphne's children, since she was the eldest child.

Doing so would kill off their family names, but they would gain substantially in return. The Greengrass family bloodline ability was unparalleled in versatility, their ancestral sorceries could demolish castles, their family totems were incredibly powerful, and their family crest was nearly as distinguished as that of the Barthomeloi clan's.

Lucius smiled and added, "That is true. We can discuss dowries later-"

"Do not presume to think that I'm agreeing to anything, Baron Malfoy. Besides, my eldest is under the jurisdiction of a marriage contract already," said Daniel. He rolled his eyes at their glares, and elaborated, "If there is ever a point when a firstborn daughter of Greengrass and a firstborn son of Peverell are available, then they must marry or annul the contract themselves."

Nott frowned and spoke, "I thought the Peverell name died out centuries ago. How is this possible?"

Greengrass smirked and said, "I'm guessing that a firstborn Peverell took up a different name during the Bloodline War of John VII's reign to subvert suspicions; most likely they joined their vassal family and disappeared into relative obscurity. If I had to guess, I'd say that young Harry Potter is the inheritor apparent of the Peverell estate and bloodline, which would make him Archduke Peverell..." Both former Death Eaters grit their teeth in annoyance, so he offered, "But enough of that. Tell me, how goes the scheme to get Fudge to infiltrate Hogwarts with one of his own?"

Lucius nodded uneasily, glad for the change of subject, "It is currently underway even as we speak. Minister Fudge is drafting a new Educational Decree that would allow him to appoint someone to the position of..."  
>_<p>

From myths and legends, they were born. The essence of the world and beyond, this is what comprises the supernatural core of them, thus lending form to these existences: the gods. But for some gods, the forms and nature of their myths become a burden and they rebel against them. Manifesting in the mortal world by escaping from the Domain of Immortality that housed their myths, these heretic gods brought disaster with them. When they descend from their legends, the Will of the World is twisted about them.

The god's screams echoed off the walls of the cavern, and the onlooker smiled grimly. Writhing on the ground, the mystical construct began evaporating, joining the Greater Source of energy as it died. The tortured being was of divine origin, having descended from the higher plane of its legend at the wrong place and wrong time.

They are the children of Alaya, who is herself a wayward child of Gaia, and thus are recognized as pieces of the World. Yet they wreak havoc wherever they go, throwing the Counter Balance out of balance. Among them are those known as Gods of Steel, who are those who embody the sword, their myths and legends containing veiled references to forging or tempering a sword. Many of them, such as Siegfried and Sun Wukong, share a characteristic of having skin of extreme durability, through immersion in fire or liquids such as water or blood, and harken to the methods for forging a sword.

And before Viktor Krum, was a powerful god, one whose origin was muddled and obscured. "Bellerophon; Perseus. Both were the same existence, the same being. Perseus can be translated as 'He Who Came From The East', which means that you were an itinerant warrior from East of Ancient Greece. You were actually a bored god, who decided that playing the part of a mortal hero would be an amusing game. You are the amalgam of several gods, one of whom is Mithras. Your sect, the Mithraic Mysteries, was a contender with Christianity in the early days of the Roman Empire. You were once powerful, but now you are the shadow of a husk of your former self... I banish you from this world, heretic god," said the Bulgarian.

And then he brought down a powerful mystical artifact, one that had the power to harm a god. It was a noble phantasm that he was borrowing from an old family friend, a hunter for the Mage's Association, for the express purpose of hunting and killing divine beings. Fragarch, The Retaliator, is a Noble Phantasm and Mystic Code with the ultimate form of counterattack.

It is the Sword of Retrograde and an indefeasible weapon of the gods, divinely protected by some malicious will, that works by using a conceptual curse to warp destiny and a divine trick that uses time as its blade. It warps causality to always strike the opponent in the heart with a needle thin concentrated blast right before they unleash their ultimate attack. The condition for its use is that the opponent must use their strongest attack, and Fragarach must be used directly after the enemy's strike. It would normally be that Fragarach would kill the enemy, and the opponent's attack would also simultaneously destroy the wielder.

Despite being released afterward and no matter how fast the opposing attack is cast, Fragarach always strikes first by changing the flow of time to rewrite events so that it makes it own strike against the enemy before the opposing move was ever made in the course of the world. Rather than just rewriting events to gouge out the heart of the enemy, it is severing the fate of the combatants, reversing and changing the flow of destiny of both the user and enemy simultaneously killing each other with their attacks.

The attack of the enemy, returned to a point where it _couldn't happen_ due to the user being struck down by Fragarach, is wiped out by the laws of the world and the absolute system of time. No matter the power or speed of the ability, it is impossible to use if the enemy is defeated and has all of their later actions voided before they even have a chance to attack. It is an ability using one's life as bait to counter a one-turn-kill to win the battle that both kills the enemy and nullifies their attack, creating a perfect balance between offensive and defensive capabilities.

And he just used it to usurp the divine authority of a god. Authorities are the divine powers, attributes, qualities, and weapons, of gods, heroes, demons, and monsters, which make them invincible to normal humans. If a heretic god is slain, their Authorities will be stolen by the human, transforming them into something more. There are many names for people who accomplished such a feat, from God-Slayer to Devil-King, but everyone agreed on one thing: never mess with one.

He could already feel the power of the fallen god flowing into his magic circuits, filling and expanding them. The wounds he sustained during the battle completely healed, and he felt the power of the authorities he gained. He smiled and left the cavern, already planning on returning The Retaliator to its rightful owner, a hunter of sealing designated people for the Mages Association. "If what I've heard is true, then I'll need all the help I can get in the coming year..."

The woman next to him, Bazett Fraga McRemitz, smiled thinly and said, "If the Mages Association has any say in the matter, you certainly will..."


	6. Act One: Amelioration

**Act One: Amelioration**

* * *

><p>His breathing was ragged, but he still smiled in self-satisfaction. This morning he added another lap around the neighborhood to his daily runs, bringing his total jogging time to almost ten minutes nonstop without needing a break. That was about a mile altogether. He was proud of his improvement, even though he knew that his cardiovascular endurance was still absolutely terrible.<p>

It was now two days after he met Equinox and Serana, and he was still reeling from everything he learned and acquired on his very first day back at the Dursley house. Now that he had some time to process it all, it all seemed to fit together quite nicely. He would be keeping an eye on Dumbledore, he would emulate Voldemort's methods to an extent to gain followers, and he would work to constantly improve himself.

After returning to the house, he got himself a bottle of water and chugged it in only a few minutes, before he went about cooking breakfast again. He looked out the kitchen window, smirking at the fact that it was now closed, at the beautiful sunrise. He'd always been an early riser, but now it was just getting downright unusual. Perhaps it was because he was used to waking up and preparing the first meal of the day for everyone, but several of his fellow Gryffindors nagged him about it.

He shrugged at the thought, and looked through the pantry. His mouth turned into a thin line when he realized that almost all the food in the house was gone. "Oh that's right, Petunia screeched something about Dudley needing a diet yesterday. Well, I guess they aren't getting a hearty English breakfast this morning..." he mumbled. Shrugging, he grabbed a banana and returned to his room happily.

He knew that he could've just ordered Dobby to bring him some food, but he wanted to eat something relatively light this early in the morning. After his morning ritual of taking a shower, brushing his teeth, brushing his newly tamed hair, and getting dressed, he returned to his room and sat at the foot of his bed. Sitting on his desk was a small stack of letters that he'd received over the course of the previous day but been to busy to read them.

He was absorbed in his new books too much to even notice their arrival until it was too late to reply to them.

So now he began earnestly reading them:

* * *

><p><em>Dear Mr. Potter,<em>

_I'm delighted that you took the time out of your busy schedule to send me a message; you don't know how pleasantly surprised I was to receive your letter. Now, you mentioned that you were interested in my advanced tutoring skills. As a Potions Master, I can assure you that my attention should be more than adequate preparation for you to receive an O on your Ordinary Wizarding Level tests at the end of your fifth year. It is nice to know that the younger generation still has some bright people in it._

_I am perfectly happy and willing to tutor you free of charge, and would like to begin our study sessions sometime in the near future. Would that be agreeable to you? I can't wait to get started, and already have a rough plan in mind for your lessons._

_Sincerely,_  
><em>Horace Slughorn<em>

* * *

><p>Harry smiled softly. This was the first step to getting the legendary man to become his mentor in the subtle arts of schmoozing and networking. He knew, objectively, that he somehow possessed a natural charisma that led to him gravitating to positions of power. He was always the leader of any group that he was a part of, even academic groups with Hermione in them. He would organize everyone and get things set up, and she would take care of all the minor details for him.<p>

He wondered what effect this man would have on his leadership abilities, to say nothing of his abilities at socializing. Deciding to reply to the man after reading all of his other letters, Harry faced the small pile and opened up the very next one. Now, he wasn't sure why his familiar wanted him to talk specifically with Cedric Diggory of all people, since he'd never personally met the younger witch, but this should be good at the very least.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_I truly am sorry about our last quidditch match. I know that you said not to worry about it, but I still feel like it was... cheap. I really didn't mean to catch it when you were no longer in the game, and I'm still horribly sorry about your Nimbus. I know the Firebolt is a big upgrade, but you never forget your first broom. I'm rambling a bit here, but, the point is that you're a good guy._

_Listen, I hear that the Quidditch World Cup is going to be epic this year. We're hosting it in Britain, and it's going to be a grand spectacle to show off to the rest of the world. I'm definitely gonna be there. If you're going too, we should hang out. At the rate things are going, I can see it being Germany versus Ireland, unless Krum pulls off another spectacular save for Bulgaria._

_Until Then,_  
><em>Cedric<em>

* * *

><p>The Quidditch World Cup was supposed to happen on the last day of August, just before the first day of school. So it would be kicking the semester off with a bang, one that would keep at least some attention off his back. Harry couldn't help but smile at the thought. People would be more interested in talking about the Game than they would about him, and that meant that this school year wouldn't be quite so awkward at the beginning than the others. So that was another reason that he was excited about the World Cup.<p>

Deciding to sift through the letters until he found one to another follower of the sport, he smiled when he found Cho Chang's letter. The Chinese seeker for Ravenclaw's house team was quite attractive, and he knew that he had some feelings for her. He'd been putting off reading hers, because he wasn't sure if he could take a rejection from her. With nervous tension in his gut, he ripped open the envelope and began to read quickly.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_Of course I'm looking forward to the World Cup! I wouldn't miss it for the world, and I'm glad that you're planning on going too. Perhaps we could meet up there, and do something together? I don't know what sort of things there'll be, but I've heard good things about this year's Finals from my friends. Who do you think is going to make it? I'm hoping that Germany and Bulgaria duke it out. I'd love to see how Krum matches up against Lensher without a meteor shower distracting everyone._

_I was pretty surprised to get a letter from you. Word on the street is that you hang out exclusively with Weasley and Granger. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, it just struck me as odd. But... do you remember that moment, when we first looked at each other from across the pitch? That was the first time that I saw you, like really saw you. It's pretty easy to spot you in the castle, normally because you're preceded by whispers and giggles (which I bet you get tired of pretty quick)._

_But in that moment, I got caught up in your intensity. I knew immediately that I wouldn't be able to beat you, not at quidditch, but I still played my heart out. When we were dancing through the air, and you were letting me chase you into corners a few times, I felt almost like we were the only people on the field. It's hard to describe beyond that... We should play again sometime, one on one, preferably sooner rather than later._

_Anyway, I doubt that I'll be able to do anything with anyone this summer. There's a lot of family drama going on, and it'll take a miracle for me to get permission from my father to hang out with any boys alone. So, our little rematch might have to wait until the school year starts. I'll see you at the World Cup, hopefully!_

_Thinking of You,_  
><em>Cho Chang<em>

* * *

><p><em>"Holy shit, I'm in,"<em> said Harry happily. _"And to think, I wouldn't have ever grown the balls to talk to her without that short pep talk you gave me. I don't know how I'll ever repay you, but I'm sure you'll like it,"_ he finished. An enormous grin was forcing its way onto his face, and he couldn't get it to go away no matter how much he tried to force his mouth to cooperate. It was a lost cause.

He sighed dramatically, and a short daydream began playing before his eyes. He could vividly see himself and Cho, sitting in the Top Box of a stadium, holding hands and cheering for their favored teams. Whichever team she chose to support, he would join her. Because while he would always root for whichever team had an identity tying closely with himself, he could easily drop any loyalty he had for a chance to be close to her.

And now that chance seemed much more probable than it ever had before. He silently thanked the gods for allowing quidditch to exist.

He came upon another letter, this one from Susan Bones. He didn't know much about her, other than that she was a Hufflepuff in his year and that her aunt worked high up in the Ministry. He noticed that her handwriting was much more harried and frantic than anyone else's, as if she wrote her letter faster than she could think about what she was saying. It was odd, and it took him a bit longer to decipher what she'd written, but he eventually managed to do so.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_I can't believe that you sent me a letter. And I would love to be your friend. Maybe we could hang out sometime soon, like during the Quidditch World Cup? Auntie and I are going to be in the Top Box, and we actually have an extra ticket. I'm also bringing my friend Hannah along, and I'm sure she would love to meet up too. I think it's great that you're finally starting to branch out of Gryffindor, friends-wise._

_Also, I know that you don't have the best relationship with Hufflepuff, and I'm sorry about that. During our second year, when the Chamber of Secrets was opened and everyone thought you were responsible for the attacks, I saw how my housemates treated you. While I didn't say anything at the time... looking back, I can see that how we treated you was wrong. I'm truly sorry for that, and I hope to make it up to you the next time we're in person._

_Love,_  
><em>Susan<em>

* * *

><p>He didn't know what to make of her letter. He had heard some rumors stating that she was something of a fan-girl of his, and the thought made him cringe. Harry was also aware of the fact that she was best friends with a girl named Hannah Abbot, who ran the rumor mill of Hogwarts as well as Parvati Patil and Lavendar Brown. She was what Equinox referred to as a key asset during his early rise to power.<p>

But reading her letter, it seemed like she was much more down to Earth than he'd initially thought, at least from her proximity to Hufflepuff's gossip queen. Perhaps those rumors were blown out of proportion, or simple falsehoods to begin with. Either way, he was looking forward to meeting her in person now too. The fact that she apologized for their second year on behalf of her entire house made him feel conflicted though.

On one hand she was the first person from that house, other than that pompous git Ernie McSomething, who at least acted contrite about the matter. On the other hand it was almost two years earlier, and he had moved on. He didn't really dwell on the negative aspects of his life, which he supposed was a coping mechanism he'd come up with while living with the Dursley family. But at the same time, the fact that it took anyone that long to apologize for something so traumatic... it brought some annoyance to mind.

Deciding to repress the slight anger and direct it towards something more substantial and less abstract than petty revenge for half-forgotten slights of yesteryear, he pulled another envelope towards him. He might have been a bit more savage at opening this letter, but it was the closest outlet for his irritation.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Lord Potter,<em>

_I, the Scion of the Most Ancient and Revered House of Greengrass, am interested in what you have to say. I do think that a friendship between the two of us could be beneficial, though something like that would have to be hidden from the public. Fraternization between the heir of a Most Ancient and Revered House renowned for its neutrality and the heir of a Most Ancient and Noble House known for its liberal tendencies would bring about unwanted scrutiny and speculation from the masses._

_There is something that you want from me, and there is something that I want from you. But until you can figure out what it is that you have and I want, I will not be contacting you again. And, this is just a minor detail that I think you should keep in mind: anyone that you correspond with will be easy to track due to the rarity of your owl. There aren't many snowy owls in Britain, and her beauty can be a liability in the future. Whenever you figure out what I want, send your message with a different owl._

_Sincerely,_  
><em>Daphne Greengrass<em>

* * *

><p>Frowning, he couldn't figure out what to make of her response. On one hand she was very formal in her reply, acting as if they were negotiating the details of a business transaction. But on the other hand, she seemed to be phishing for information at the same time. He also noticed that she seemed to care quite a lot about her public image, and he wondered what that implied about himself.<p>

Perhaps it was because she belonged in the castle's Snake Pit, but he couldn't help but feel that she'd want their alliance to be more discreet than the others he was forming. If he played this right, he could potentially have a spy among the Slytherin's. However, another possibility entered his mind, and he distinctly felt uneasy at the thought. He knew that she'd been politicking since she could walk, which meant that she was far more experienced in the art of manipulation than he was.

Did she plan on reversing their roles? He would have to meet her in person to be entirely sure though. Shaking his head to snap himself out of the paranoia that he found himself in, he turned his attention to the next letter in the pile. This one came with the official Family Emblem of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Volikar emblazoned across the front, which meant that this was a formal letter from her family.

* * *

><p><em>To My Favorite Student,<em>

_Your claim to the basilisk has been formalized with the Ministry of Magic, and all sales will be heavily taxed on their part. Thankfully, the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter received a license to sell components of phantasmal creatures publicly, otherwise we would have to resort to the black market. _

_We are going to auction off parts of the snake slowly over the course of the next year or so, so as not to decrease the demand with too heavy a supply. Some of it is going to me as my payment for helping you and some will be kept for your personal uses, but the rest will be sold._

_Here is a small advance payment, to show our good faith. It isn't much compared to the total value of your kill, but it should be enough to tide you over for the time being. I recommend you put the majority of it in a mutual fund so that it can quickly build itself up. Use the rest however you see fit._

_Sincerely,_  
><em>Serana Volikar<em>

_P.S. Buy yourself some clothes that actually fit you, or I'll take you clothes shopping myself..._

* * *

><p>Harry gulped at the vague threat in her post-script. The thought of what she would buy him, since her sense of fashion was probably not up to date even with wizarding trends, made him shiver. He might not have been a very vain person, but even he knew that he would rather die than let someone like her choose how he dressed. While the clothes she wore were certainly... titillating... he just felt it would be safer for him to buy his own clothes by himself.<p>

There was only one letter left, sent by Luna Lovegood, and he promised himself that he would go clothes shopping immediately after he read it.

* * *

><p><em>Dear Harry,<em>

_I am currently in Papua New Guinea with my father. We're searching for Crumple Horned Snorkacks among the indigenous aboriginees, so I won't be able to talk to you too much. But sure, I'll be your friend. _

_Don't Feed the Yao-Guai,_  
><em>Luna<em>

* * *

><p><em>"I... okay..."<em> he said, not sure of anything anymore.

_"I love her,"_ stated Equinox.

_"I can see why. She suits your comedic style,"_ Harry muttered.

_"Thank you."_  
>_<p>

The next thing Harry knew, he'd spent all of the money he received from Serana that wasn't immediately placed in a mutual fund. Between a mundane mall and Diagon Alley, he no longer had to worry about clothes. From the muggles he got several pairs of jeans and khakis, a few of which were lined on the inside with fleece and felt like comfortable pajamas. He knew how cold the castle got at night, so he also bought a nice pair of gloves and a beanie hat. Then for no apparent reason he bought several graphic T-shirts depicting characters from various American cartoons and comic books, and Japanese anime and manga.

He completed his muggle shopping spree by buying a cell phone, or more specifically a smart phone. While he knew that all electronics died when they were brought to Hogwarts, he was sure that it was still a good purchase. He could use it all summer as much as he wanted, then leave it behind when he went to school. And he'd still have it when he returned, which was nice.

In Diagon Alley he bought enchanted boots that would always keep his feet warm and keep traction on any solid surface, and a jacket that had dragon leather on the outside and polar bear fur on the that he saw a nearby magical hair salon, and wondered idly how it differed from a muggle version. Fifteen minutes later, he exited with ruly hair. It was a glossy midnight black as usual, and it was still long and shaggy, but it actually seemed to obey him now. He actually noticed that his hair was similar to Light Yagami, one of the characters on his new shirts, except that Harry's was much darker.

He didn't have much of a need for anything else, since he didn't yet have his list of school supplies for the upcoming semester, so he ended up sitting at Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor and watching people going about their business for a short while. He noticed that the wanted posters for Sirius Black were still everywhere, but they weren't as prominent as they were last year. It was as if everyone had somewhat given up on getting the supposed madman back in their clutches.

It was during this introspection that Harry glanced up, and saw one of his housemates. Neville Longbottom and his grandmother were about to walk right past him, so he called out, "Hey Neville, how's summer break treating you so far?" When the pair finally saw him, Neville gave him a nervous smile and the grandmother had a very thin smile as well.

"Is something wrong?" asked Harry, feeling as if he were intruding on a private matter yet unsure of how to avoid it.

The old woman decided to speak up, "Neville has gone and broken his father's wand. So now we're on a trip to Ollivander's to get him another. I've never been so ashamed of someone in all my years..."

Harry frowned at her words and tone, and decided to defend his friend. "Listen, you do realize that its the wand that chooses the wizard, right? While anybody could try to use somebody else's wand, it won't work nearly as well for them as one that specifically chose them. That's probably why your grandson was having a difficult time at school; you were forcing him to use somebody else's wand _while its actually owner was still alive_. That, madame, is surely the height of folly, is it not?"

He'd been meaning to say something of the like for a while, but was never sure of how to broach the topic. But now that he'd actually met the woman that had influence over Neville's life, he couldn't help the rising sense of annoyance in his stomach. This woman had let her brother drop her grandson out an open window just to see if he could manifest his magical abilities, of which were being repressed by her smothering and constantly trying to mould the boy into his own father.

So it all just kind of spilled out without him meaning it to. But, rather than look offended as he expected her to, she just nodded briskly and turned away. "I just hoped that he would be more like his father by using that wand," she said softly. Harry felt his jaw clench at those words, but barely managed to keep his anger in check until she was well out of sight.

He pulled out his grimoire, and began reading a passage from _Battle Magicks: Journeyman_ on basic spellcraft manipulation, which was farther in the tome than his familiar was comfortable with him foraying, at least without some form of adult supervision. The most basic way to affect a spell was something called spell-bending, which allowed the caster a modicum of control over the spell's flight path. He could bend the trajectory of a spell, to allow it to move around obstacles like noncombatants and shields.

It seemed quite useful, but he doubted that he would ever be able to use it before school started. Although Serana cut his Trace, he still couldn't think of any place to try it at. Anywhere within a five mile radius of Little Whinging would send up red flags, and he couldn't use magic anywhere in public either. Perhaps he could ask Sirius for a suggestion.

He glanced up from his book again, and caught sight of a certain blond-haired boy and his equally blond parents looking snootily right at him. _"Oh great, the Adams Family," _mocked Equinox silently. The only way Harry displayed his amusement was by blinking once. It wouldn't do to be seen smiling in the general direction of this family, not a genuine one at least.

"Well, if it isn't the famous Harry Potter," drawled the boy. The boy's words carried, and people were finally beginning to notice that the Boy-Who-Lived was sitting in broad daylight. He'd been internally wondering whether anybody would notice him beyond the Longbottom party, but he supposed his luck had to run out eventually. "And I see you've finally managed to get your hair in order. That took about what, maybe, fourteen years to accomplish?" said Draco haughtily.

"Ah, Draco. I've been meaning to talk to you," said Harry calmly. Both Lucius and Narcissa blinked at Harry's strangely familiar form of address for their son, but he dove right in, "Look, this thing between us, this supposed rivalry that exists only in your head, isn't working out. I propose a truce, because I just can't handle your attitude anymore. And I think petty school squabbles are behind us, don't you?"

The other boy opened his mouth angrily, no doubt to throw this olive branch back in Harry's face, when his father placed a hand on his shoulder. The boy looked questioningly at his sire, but the older man simply shook his head minutely. To the Boy-Who-Lived's shock, this actually managed to silenced the proud Slytherin. "We would be amenable to that, Potter."

At this point, Narcissa spoke up, "Perhaps, in time, a friendship could foster between the two of you..." She didn't have to say any more words aloud, because Harry knew the implications of her words. The elder members of the Malfoy household were trying to form a tentative political connection, on the off chance that they needed a way to escape from the issues that they would inevitably face.

When Harry finally laid his eyes on her, he couldn't help the slight blush that came to his face. Witches were almost always more attractive than muggle women, because the mere presence of magic itself in their magic circuits made them so, and on top of that they had spells and potions that could further enhance their natural beauty. But he'd also heard of the magical equivalent to plastic surgery, known as beautification rituals. And he had a feeling that the Malfoy matriarch had gone through a few.

Harry, pointing accusingly at the beautiful woman, interrogated, "How can you look so fantastic and be a real person?" he said, acting as if he momentarily forgot the group of people in front of him existed and that he was merely musing aloud. A hint of pink colored the woman's smooth face, and she looked away towards her husband. They were used to people complimenting her appearance, either as a way to ingratiate themselves to the Malfoy name or snipe at them with rumors about her enhancements, though not in such a direct manner.

To top that off, the boy didn't seem to have any ulterior motives in complimenting her. He was being brazenly honest, with a hint of a genuine smile on his lips, and she couldn't help but feel a slight warmth in her stomach at the thought. For a brief moment, she entertained the notion of Harry Potter in her head, and was surprised to note that she didn't actually mind the thought. And _that_, is what confused her more than anything.

Her husband's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, having obviously understood what it was that his wife felt. He gave a tiny nod and said, "Come Draco, we're leaving." The boy looked about ready to whine, but a quick glance from his father instantaneously silenced the petulant child, who pouted but did as he was told. As the family walked away, Narcissa glanced back, only to see the boy back to reading his book. Only when she saw the title, did her steps falter somewhat. _Battle Magicks: Journeyman_ was around NEWT level reading material, and the boy looked more fascinated than confused.

Just how far ahead was the Boy-Who-Lived?  
>_<p>

He was currently laying on his bed again, this time with his new cell-phone in his palm. The dial tone started, and he felt strangely nervous. He'd never used a cellphone before, so he was hoping that he hadn't screwed this up. On the third ring, she answered. "Hello?" He idly noticed that her voice sounded much different through the phone that if she were right next to him.

"Hermione?" he asked, unsure of himself. It would be dreadfully awkward if he had somehow gotten this wrong, or she were trying to prank him in her letter. It might not have been her style, but he could easily see Fred and George managing to impersonate her just to make him seem foolish.

"Harry?" she responded, seeming equally unsure. That was promising, and a small amount of relief swept through his body. He wouldn't have to awkwardly explain that he'd dialed the wrong number for some reason, so that was good.

"Hermione," the wizard said, sounding much more sure of himself.

"Harry," the witch replied with amusement coloring her voice.

"I suppose I dialed the right number then," he said softly, allowing her to giggle a little before continuing. "Well, how have things been with your parents?" Harry asked as unobtrusively as possible. He had suspicions that they weren't as supportive of their only daughter being a witch as she made them out to be.

"Not too well. Our trip to France got canceled. I don't know why, and the parents won't tell me. I guess that means that I'm stuck here in Britain," she huffed. Something told him that she was trying to be facetious, but he couldn't tell for sure.

"Bollocks. I know you really wanted to go," he commiserated, just on the off chance that she was being serious.

"Well, it is what it is. So tell me, Harry, how are things going for you and your par... guardians?" Hermione reciprocated. She was dangerously close to a faux pas, but he would've forgiven her anyway. He knew that children with both their biological parents tended to take their roles in life for granted.

Smiling softly, he decided to invite her to the chaos that his summer would undoubtedly be a part of. "I've been having a little adventure. Would you like to come along for the ride?" he asked, biting his lip nervously.

"Harry," she began warningly, "What exactly have you been up to?" She was definitely a Type A personality, because even the contemplation of bending the rules was enough to make her hair frizz up in indignation.

He chuckled and answered, "You'll have to meet me in person to find out; you wouldn't believe me otherwise." That was a statement that would probably make her eyebrows raise, considering the extracurricular activities that she already knew he partook in.

"Try me," she challenged.

Sucking breath in, he grins and says, "Well..."  
>_<p>

And so the first two weeks of summer flew by, with Harry beginning his own self improvement. In the morning and afternoon he exercised; Serana was forcing him through Yoga and Tai Chi, as well as teaching him Muy Thai, Pankration, and Krav Maga, and the beginnings of Parkour.

She was also creating a foundation for him with innate reinforcement and mana burst attacks to increase his physical attributes. The whole time, Equinox was pouring information into his brain from both the mundane and magical skill pools.

He was learning faster than ever before, so he didn't need to spend much time on anything at all. With his phoenix's help, they managed to review or outright learn biology, chemistry, physics, calculus, economics, history, psychology, sociology, philosophy, and anthropology. This was on top of charms, transfiguration, potions, herbology, arithmancy, ancient runes, defense against the dark arts, astronomy, and care for magical creatures.

If it weren't for his Intuitive Aptitude, the bloodline ability of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Potter, he likely would've broken from information overload on that first day.

In the evening he corresponded with his burgeoning Inner Circle. Plans for the World Cup were made, a truce with the Malfoy family was forged, and Harry was beginning to leave his shell. With his trace gone, a phoenix for instantaneous and undetectable travel, and a house elf to cater to his every need, he was living the life of a king.

Before he knew it, it was time for him to go back to the Burrow, and he almost felt like he would miss Number Four, Privet Drive; being able to ignore the Dursley clan and even aggravate them without consequences felt really good.

Sighing, he leaned back in the couch of their living room, wondering when the Weasley family would show up. He knew they were chronically tardy, but to be over thirty minutes late...

"No consideration at all," sniffed Petunia.

"We might've had an engagement," huffed Vernon.

"Maybe they think they'll get invited to dinner if they're late," muttered Dudley.

"Well, they most certainly won't be," muttered Vernon. "They'll take the boy and go, there'll be no hanging around. That's if they're coming at all. Probably mistaken the day. I daresay their kind don't set much store by punctuality. Either that or they drive some tin-pot old car that's broken d-"

That's when an enormous thump came from the fireplace, followed by several voices bickering. "Fred, ouch, no not there. There's been some kind of, ugh, mistake. Stand, ow, back, ow. Tell, gah, George not to... ow, don't... make sure Ron doesn't, ouch..." that sounded like a muffled Arthur Weasley.

"Maybe Harry can hear us, dad. Maybe he'll be able to let us out," said one of the twins. There was a short, pregnant pause, before all of the Weasley men began pounding on the electric fire blocking their path. "Harry? Harry can you hear us?" said one of the twins again.

Harry's face was planted firmly in his palm, and he was shaking his head ever so slowly. "I'm so sorry, you lot," he said to both the shocked onlooking Dursley family and the trapped suffocating Weasley family. He just started silently chuckling, hoping to keep his mirth hidden from the Dursleys. "Mr. Weasley? Can you hear me?"

The hammering against the chimney stopped, and somebody within said, "Shh."

Harry snorted and said, "Mr. Weasley, it's Harry. The fireplace has been blocked up with an electric fire; you won't be able to get through there."

"Really, eclectic, you say? Like with a plug? Gracious, I must see that. Hmm, let's think. Ouch, Ron!" said the patriarch of the Weasley clan.

At this point Ron's voice joined the others', "What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"

"Oh no, Ron, this is exactly where we wanted to be," replied a twin sarcastically. At this point the other twin added in, "Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here." The byplay, albeit muffled, was still quite amusing to Harry as he took in the dumbstruck faces of his aunt and uncle. This is the point where Mr. Weasley gets the fantastic idea to banish the electric fireplace out of his way.

Harry had to bite his cheek to stop from chuckling at the sight of the Dursley family diving out of the way of a sailing fireplace. Petunia fell backwards over the coffee table, and Vernon's best suit got covered in white dust. Somehow, Harry was standing in the center of the living room, immaculate compared to the destruction that Arthur Weasley wrought.

"Hey mate!" called his own personal ginger. Ron whacked him on the back in a brotherly sort of way and said,"Its been way too long since the last time we've seen each other!"

"Yeah, absolutely worst two weeks ever," said Harry jokingly. He refrained from telling Ron about his recent adventures involving vampire lords and phoenixes because he'd likely tell his mother, who would relay anything having to do with him to Dumbledore. And he'd rather the old man be wasting time and energy trying to figure out what Harry'd been doing for the past few weeks, rather than being able to concoct another scheme to isolate him from his friends.

After some harried apologies, the twins ran up to his room to get his trunk (nobody questioned just how they already knew where his room was). They returned a few minutes later, shaking from the weight of his belongings. He'd packed quite a few important things this year. And without further ado, they all entered the fireplace and disappeared in a blaze of emerald flames. Harry didn't even look back.

When he stepped through on the other side, Mrs. Weasley nearly shouted, "Fred, George; take Harry's trunk up to Ron's room now! The poor dear doesn't need to carry around such weight on his skinny shoulders!" He couldn't protest and warn them about the possible hernias they'd be getting if they tried to move his trunk because Mrs. Weasley turned her attention to Harry himself, "Harry, I'm going to have to fill you up with at least four portions at every meal so you can keep up with Ron! Oh those terrible muggles..."

He looked down at his body with a suddenly critical eye. While he was skinny from being underfed, he wasn't exactly of weak stock. Every summer he did backbreaking labor in the sweltering sun, which gave his skin a pleasant tan shade and gave him considerable muscle mass. Then there was Quidditch practices and matches during the school year, which required his body to cope with up to five G's of force. And there was the past few weeks of martial arts, stretches, and free running that he'd been doing. He actually had the statuesque body of a swimmer or runner, built for speed.

The Twins reached his trunk and grunted in surprise at the amount of effort required to lift it. If they weren't the greatest beaters on all of the Hogwarts teams, they'd likely not have even been able to lift it off the ground since most wizards had terrible physiques. That being said, he had the Invisibility Cloak, White Phial, Potter Grimoire, Marauder's Map, all of his clothes both mundane and magical, and a stash of gold hidden in that trunk.

"Goodness kid, what do you have in that trunk?" asked Twin B. Harry knew that, if either really wanted to, they could bench at least two hundred pounds because of the physical conditioning required of the beaters so he didn't take them seriously.

"Its almost too heavy even for us," said Twin 2. That being said, Mrs. Weasley would likely go crazy if he tried to do anything for himself, so he just silently watched as they began to lug a nearly two hundred pound trunk up_all_ the flights of stairs that led to Ron's room. It could be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Twin B nodded sagely and said, "Which must be pretty heavy because we're super strong."

"Absolutely, I mean look at our godly bodies and visages!" said Twin 2.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think he was unimpressed with our angelic appearances!" exclaimed Twin B.

"Well maybe he doesn't swing that way," said Twin 2.

"I'd swing that way if I saw somebody who looked like me," said Twin B.

"_And there's the punchline,_" Harry internally projected.

"Really?" asked Twin 2, "Well you're in luck-"

"FRED, GEORGE! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO CORRUPT HARRY?!" yelled Mrs. Weasley. Rather than responding, they scurried up the stairs as fast as they could with the trunk in between them. "I'm sorry about that Harry," she continued. Then she looked at Ron and said, "Dear, its been a week since you last degnomed the garden. Do it now so you can visit Harry later." Ron grumbled darkly and walked off, leaving Harry alone with just Molly and Ginny. "Oh, I've got to cook dinner," she said with a strangely expectant gleam in her eye. She walked away. And now Harry was stuck with the nervous wreck that is Ginny Weasley.

There was an awkward air, and Harry decided to start conversation. "So-" but she squeaked and ran away. "_Will she ever be able to have a conversation with me?_" wondered Harry.

He felt Equinox snort again and say, "_Let me tell you something incredibly wise and profound: Bitches be tripping._" Harry chuckled, but looked around warily. It wouldn't do to appear like a crazy person, now would it? Shrugging, he walked off and said, "Might as well help Ron..." From a nearby window, Mrs. Weasley was cursing her only daughter's lack of self esteem.

There was something oddly relaxing about grabbing gnomes by their heads, swinging them around like medieval flails, and watching them fly off into the distance. They'd started a game of 'who-can-throw-the-gnome-the-farthest.' Grinning, Harry said, "So when is Hermione coming over?"

Ron grunted and threw his and impressive distance before replying, "Likely just before the Quidditch World Cup. She's on vacation in France at the moment, though I don't see why she'd wanna go there..." While Harry already knew that she was in France, he hadn't yet gotten around to asking her when she'd return. "At least with her away we don't have to study in our spare time," continued Ron.

Harry flinched and said, "Actually, Ron..." The ginger stared at him with eyes slowly widening in horror.

"No, not you too!" exclaimed the redhead.

Harry shrugged and replied, "I kind of have to. Every year something goes horribly wrong for me. Can you really fault me for wanting to protect myself? First year there was Quirrel, second year there was Riddle, last year there were dementors... Need I go on?" Ron shook his head, beginning to wonder just what sort of havoc would find his best friend this year. Snapping out of his reverie, Harry said, "When we're done with this, we should play some Quidditch."

Considerably happier having heard that, Ron smiled and said, "Well then let's start chucking!" And thus the air was filled with blurs of limbs and gnomes, and within minutes the yard was steadily filled with growing numbers of dizzy and giggling creatures. Harry and Ron watched happily as the tiny humanoids drunkenly swaggered off into the distance, hiccups occasionally floating back to their ears.

As soon as they reached the orchard that the Weasley family used as their makeshift Quidditch field, Fred and George quickly joined them. Harry and Ron formed a quick team, and the Twins were on the other. With Ron and Twin 2 as the keepers, and Harry and Twin B as the chasers, they continued playing until they reached ten goals, or a hundred points. Not even three minutes into the scrimmage, Chaser Twin said, "Blimey Harry, you could easily replace Angelina as the lead chaser!"

Smiling, Harry made another goal, thus marking his fifth already. "I could likely do everyone's jobs decently, but I'm a seeker through and through," he said grinning. The wind was whipping his hair back and forth as he stole the improvised quaffle, which was really just a hardened watermelon, and made another shot through Keeper Twin's guard.

Ron looked annoyed that Harry was good at yet another thing without trying, and blurted out, "I'm trying out for keeper this year!" All three members of the Gryffindor House Quidditch Team stopped their banter and looked at Ron, sizing him up.

"He probably would never live up to Wood's standards, but he might just make the team," said Twin 2. Ron looked both annoyed and happy with that assessment.

Harry, hoping to lessen the sting of that statement, said, "Well Wood's something of a fanatic when it comes to Quidditch." All three nodded sagely at his words before Harry and the Twins all started chuckling.

"Speaking of Wood, we're going to be meeting him next week at the Puddlemere United training facility," said Fred.

"Really? That actually sounds pretty fun," said Harry.

"The entire team from last year's gonna be there to support him," said George.

"We'd have invited you along, but we thought you'd be stuck with your muggles," explained Fred.

Harry nodded, "Makes sense."

Fred and George exchanged a quick glance before saying with ominous seriousness, "Harry... have you noticed that most members of the Quidditch team date each other?" Harry just looked at them blankly. He knew that Fred was dating Angelina and George was dating Alicia (or maybe Fred was dating Alicia and George was dating Angelina, he really couldn't tell), but he couldn't see why they were bringing that up now.

"Yes?" he asked in confusion.

"Well-" began Twin B.

"-don't you think that-" interupted Twin 2.

"-Katie is a pretty girl?" continued Ginger B.

Harry squirmed a little and said, "Yeah, she's pretty cute. Its just that my attention is mostly on... another seeker..."

The Twins' eyes widened comically as they said simultaneously, "You like Malfoy/Diggory?"

"So it seems that he _does_ swing that way after all," said Ginger 2.

"And he was obviously playing hard to get," continued Fred.

Ron gasped and said, "Its Cho Chang isn't it?" The other three stared at Ron like he was an idiot. Thankfully for Harry, Mrs. Weasley chose that moment to announce that lunch was ready for everyone. The put their brooms away, entered the house, and ate a few sandwiches. Somehow, Harry suspiciously ended up sitting next to a blushing Ginny, who was stuttering so much that he couldn't even understand her. Luckily, the Twins kept him occupied and excused him from having an incredibly awkward conversation with the starstruck girl.

After they finished eating, Ron wanted Harry to join him in another round of Quidditch. "Sorry mate, but I've got to study and practice some more. Maybe later?" replied Harry. Ron looked severely annoyed and grumbled something before walking off by himself toward the orchard. Shrugging indifferently, Harry opened up his favorite book on theoretical metaphysics and picked up where he left off.

But then the doorbell rang, and Harry answered it. He found two people standing in the doorway, an absolutely gorgeous woman and a tall black man. "Hello, may I help you?"

The woman smiled at him with a strange glint in her eyes that reminded him of Serana as she replied, "You're Harry Potter, right?"

He nodded slowly, watching carefully as their eyes passed over his forehead, despite his scar being hidden behind his bangs. Ever since getting his hair done in Diagon Alley, his straight hair seemed so much longer than before and easily hid his most identifying feature.

Grinning, the woman pulled him into a hug that conspicuously rammed his face into the valley between her breasts as she said, "I'm Tonks and this is Shackelbolt. We're your Auror bodyguards. My cousin, Sirius Black, is on the loose and has shown an interest in you over the past year."

"You're Sirius's cousin?" he asked in a stunned voice as he looked her over. Sure, Sirius spent ten years in Azkaban, but he still didn't look anything like the absolute babe that stood before him.

She had long brown hair going down to her waist with the occasional strips of artificial coloring here or there, her eyes were chocolate brown with mirth dancing across them, her high cheekbones and cute little nose indicated high-class breeding, her luscious red lips were parted and incredibly kissable, and her skin was a healthy tan color.

That wasn't even including her smoking hot body. But he was trying hard not to think to much about it, lest his inner vampire take over and he accidentally fuck her on the spot. That would definitely be a bad thing... or at least he'd get in trouble for it... thought it might still be worth it... He gulped and shook his head as he slowly retreated away from her, and she pouted at him.

"Don't like what you see? Then how about this?" Her hair shorted seemingly of its own accord until it reached her shoulders, and it turned violent blue with streaks of purple through it.

"You're a metamorphmagus?" he asked cautiously. That just made her sex appeal jump by a factor of over nine thousand.

She gave him a saucy smile and said, "Of course. Maybe you'd like to see the extent of my _abilities _sometime?"

By this point, the incredibly bemused Shackelbolt cut in, "As great as it is to see a fully trained Auror hitting on a fourteen year old, we really have a job to do..." But Harry and Tonks walked into the house thoroughly ignoring him, her caught in his inadvertent Allure, and him caught in the novelty of her awesome beauty.

"Horny kids these days..." he muttered to himself in irritation. He was an M-Class duelist and the Top Auror of the British Ministry of Magic, yet those two just blew him off, not even acknowledging his presence. "I just hope she doesn't do anything unprofessional with him... Oh, who am I kidding? Tonks is practically a teenager herself..."  
>_<p>

Fleur breathed out softly. "The powers of a veela are difficult to control, especially for those not yet of age," whispered her mother. The French witch groaned and looked at her hand. Her nails were replaced by powerful talons, and flames were emanating from the palm of her hand. She was supposed to be combining the abilities that she inherited from both her mother and father during this training exercise, but it was incredibly difficult.

Her veela ancestry granted her avian mimicry, dream manipulation, intuitive empathy, seductive allure, enhanced synesthesia, pyrokinesis, and probability acceleration. Her nephilim ancestry gave her improved physical and mental attributes to a degree that shocked her. The only problem was that one derived from derivatives of the faeries, while the other was a combination of angelic and human blood. The two pools of power simply didn't like to mix at all, but she was sure that she could figure it out.

The Triwizard Tournament was easily hers, and her life afterward would be incredible. The French Auror Corps was already looking at her as a potential candidate, and they were right to do so. With her Time-Turner, she would be gaining enough time for training and studying to become a force to be reckoned with. There was no doubt in her mind that she would be chosen by whoever judged the future combatants. Any other option seemed too improbable to entertain. She didn't know what Hogwarts or Durmstrang were doing to prepare, but she knew that she was already ready.

Pulling out a seraph blade, one fashioned after a rapier, she whispered, "Michael," and watched it light up with angelic might. Twirling around, she regarded the shadowy creatures around her, smirking before slaughtering them all with her thin sword. They were nothing more than hallucinations, but they were excellent target practice...  
>_<p>

Viktor smirked at the firing squad in front of him. They were blasting off steadily more powerful and lethal hexes and curses at him, but they all slid off his body as if he himself were now a god. "So this is the power of a Campione, a God-Slayer, a Devil-King... Impenetrable resistance to external magics, as well as increased longevity and exponentially larger reserves of mana... You truly are a miracle, Viktor," said his father.

Krum smiled and replied, "It is suggested that Campione, and even those who have the potential to 'become' Campione, have the ability to create good luck, or command random chance, through force of will. In games of pure chance, it is almost impossible to beat them without cheating. This ability may even be what allows them to kill gods and become Campione. It took my reflexes as a professional seeker, an ancient mystic code that doubled as a noble phantasm, and pure luck to take out Mithras..."

"And the Authorities that you gained from that single kill..." muttered his father softly.

"Dragon-Slaying Hero and Rider of Pegasus. I gained two Authorities in one fell swoop. And without any limits, I think this was a better initiation than even the Seventh Campione. The Triwizard Tournament is already mine. And after I've shown off my might for the whole world to see, I will claim all of Europe as mine..." the internationally renowned professional Quidditch player smirked and turned off into the distance.

When nobody could see his face any more, the smile slid right off. "I promised I would avenge you, Natalia. And vengeance, I assure you, is on its way..."


End file.
